
Class 

Book__ 
Copyright N°__ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



\ J^lJ^U>^r C(TAA^^fco\. 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



BEING ADDRESSES DELIVERED 

AT THE 

PRE-CONVENTION CONFERENCE AT BUFFALO 
June 21 and 22, 1920 




PHILADELPHIA 



THE JUDSON PRESS 

BOSTON CHICAGO ST. LOUIS NEW YORK 

LOS ANGELES KANSAS CITY SEATTLE TORONTO 



^ 

V 



Copyright, 1920, by 
GILBERT N. BRINK, Secretary 

Published September, 1920 



SEP 25 1920 
©CU597543 



INTRODUCTION 



The Baptists of the United States should thank God 
and take courage. God has greatly blessed and pros- 
pered us. In 1794, there was one Baptist to every 
ninety-four of our population; in 1840, one to every 
thirty; in 1900, one to every nineteen. Today we have 
in our church-membership one-fifteenth of the population 
of the United States, and certainly one-fifth of the people 
of the Nation are Baptists in sentiment and sympathy. 
But our distinctive principles have grown in popularity 
more rapidly than our churches have grown in member- 
ship. Indeed, many of the principles for which our 
Baptist fathers did battle royal, have now become the 
cherished heritage of the whole Christian church. 

The prosperity with which God has blessed us opens 
to us many doors of opportunity and places upon us a 
great burden of responsibility. Thanking God for the 
past, let us face the future with new courage. We must 
still safeguard the truths for the advocacy of which our 
fathers here in free America were cruelly flogged and 
imprisoned. Soul-liberty and separation of Church and 
State still need champions. Baptists still need to pro- 
claim the spirituality of the ordinances and to make 
unceasing warfare on sacramentarianism and ecclesiasti- 
cism. 

Our fathers held to our distinctive principles with 
tenacity and proclaimed them with enthusiasm. In every 
controversy their appeal was to the Bible. The scholar- 
ship of the world agrees that the unmistakable teaching 
of God's Word is embodied in our fundamental Baptist 
principles. Through three centuries our fathers fought 



INTRODUCTION 



for the principles which they held dear, and now victory 
has come. But in the very day of our victory we are 
in danger of losing the fruits of the victory. The chil- 
dren of those with whom our fathers contended are now 
meeting us with a bland smile and an outstretched hand, 
saying : " We are willing to grant your contention, but 
after all ought we not to minimize our differences and 
get together for the great forward work of the kingdom ? 
Ought forms and ordinances and polity to keep us apart 
when we need to present to the world a solid front?" 
Having fought valiantly for the truth through the cen- 
turies, are we now to compromise with error in the name 
of tolerance, fraternity, and Christian charity? The 
Baptist fathers conquered error on the fields of battle. 
Are their sons to compromise with error at drawing- 
room conferences? 

Not only we are in danger of compromising our dis- 
tinctive Baptist principles, we are also in danger of com- 
promising our more fundamental Christian principles. 
The recent Interchurch World Movement emasculated 
Christianity by eliminating all doctrinal emphasis from 
its pronouncements and appeals. It had no doctrinal 
basis, and yet it sought to explain to the world the mean- 
ing of Christianity. Because it represented everybody, 
it was under obligations to offend nobody. The move- 
ment represented the compromising spirit of the age, and 
yet Northern Baptists were foremost among its pro- 
moters ! Within our own fold we hail as leaders men 
who deny the miraculous birth of Christ, the vicarious 
death of Christ, the triumphant resurrection of Christ, 
and the promised second coming of Christ. If one dares 
to raise his voice in protest, some one immediately hauls 
up the banner of Christian charity and seeks to cover 
with its folds the teaching that denies our Lord, mean- 
while saying : " Yes, we have radical differences among 
us, but surely the Baptist denomination is big enough, 






INTRODUCTION 



generous enough, charitable enough to include men of 
all shades of opinion. Let us soft-pedal doctrinal differ- 
ences and get together by working together." This 
subtle appeal put forth in the name of tolerance and 
charity is utterly at variance with Paul's admonition that 
we "contend earnestly for the faith." 

A month before the assembling of the Northern Bap- 
tist Convention in Buffalo, a call for a Pre- Convention 
Conference on Fundamentals of Our Baptist Faith was 
sent out by one hundred and fifty ministers and laymen. 
The call said: 

We believe that there rests upon us as Baptists an immediate 
and urgent duty to restate, reaffirm, and reemphasize the funda- 
mentals of our New Testament faith. Beyond all doubt the vast 
majority of our Baptist people are as loyal as were our fathers 
to our Baptist principles and our Baptist policy, but this loyalty 
will not long continue unless something is done to stay the rising 
tide of liberalism and rationalism and to preserve our principles 
in their simplicity and purity. 

A program was arranged by the group of men who 
were primarily responsible for the conference. The 
speakers were given the utmost liberty, because it was 
understood that each speaker would speak for himself 
alone. The addresses were received with much favor by 
the great host that the conference brought together. The 
demand for the publication of these addresses was gen- 
eral, and in response to that demand this volume is 
being sent forth. That it will have a wide reading and 
produce a profound impression goes without saying. 

The Buffalo conference was more than a passing inci- 
dent in our denominational life. It was a demonstration 
of the fact that our people " view with increasing alarm 
the havoc which rationalism is working in our churches 
as evidenced by the drift upon the part of many of our 
ministers from the fundamentals of our holy faith." 
The conference was thoroughly representative of the 



INTRODUCTION 



rank and file of our denomination, and this fact is signifi- 
cant and prophetic. It means that throughout our de- 
nomination, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, our people 
are determined to do their utmost " to stay the rising 
tide of liberalism and rationalism and to preserve our 
principles in their simplicity and purity." 

This book will cheer the heart and strengthen the 
hands of those who will devote themselves to this holy 
task. 

Curtis Lee Laws. 



Office of " The Watchman-Examiner/ 
New York City. 



GENERAL CONFERENCE ON 
FUNDAMENTALS 

To All Baptists within the Bounds of the Northern Con- 
vention. 

Greeting : 

We view with increasing alarm the havoc which ration- 
alism is working in our churches as evidenced by the 
drift upon the part of many of our ministers from the 
fundamentals of our holy faith. The teaching in many 
of our educational institutions is proving disastrous to 
the faith of the young men and women who are to be the 
leaders of the future. A wide-spread and growing world- 
liness has crept into the churches, a worldliness which 
has robbed us of power and brought upon us open shame. 

We believe that there rests upon us as Baptists an im- 
mediate and urgent duty to restate, reaffirm, and re- 
emphasize the fundamentals of our New Testament faith. 
Beyond all doubt the vast majority of our Baptist people 
are as loyal as were our fathers to our Baptist principles 
and our Baptist policy, but this loyalty will not long con- 
tinue unless something is done to stay the rising tide of 
liberalism and rationalism and to preserve our principles 
in their simplicity and purity. 

Therefore, acting upon our own initiative as your 
brethren, we issue this call for a conference on " The 
Fundamentals of Our Baptist Faith, ,, to be held in the 
Delaware Avenue Church, Buffalo, from 7 p. m., Monday, 
June 21, to 9.30 p. m., Tuesday, June 22. These dates 
immediately precede the meeting of the Northern Baptist 
Convention. 



CALL TO THE BUFFALO CONFERENCE 



All Baptists within the bounds of the Northern Con- 
vention are invited to attend this conference. Let in- 
creasing prayer be made for the guidance and favor of 
God. 

Adopted April 21, 1920. 

Your brethren in Christ, 



J. C. Massee 
Curtis Lee Laws 
Joel B. Slocum 
Tillman B. Johnson 
John Roach Straton 
John Donaldson 
Warren Steeves 
A. C. Archibald 
J. D. Adams 
Floyd H. Adams 
George D. Adams 
J. Whitcomb Brougher 
Christopher Burnett 
F. O. Belden 
Charles R. Brock 
Guy L. Brown 
Thomas Bolger 
W. S. Bradshaw 
John Compton Ball 
Daniel Bryant 
W. W. Bustard 
E. H. Bancroft 
M. P. Boynton 
John E. Briggs 
Edward Babcock 
R. B. Benjamin 
A. W. Bourne 
J. Francis Behrens 
Harrv Watson Barras 



T. H. Binford 
John H. Byrne 
John B. Champion 
S. W. Cummings 
J. A. Campbell 
Charles A, Cook 
John H. Chapman 
Russell H. Con well 
J. E. Conant 
I. W. Carpenter 
Amos F. Chase 
C. A. Chader 
W. Dallas Cope 
Eric Carlson 
F. E. Dark 
George Douglas 
John M. Dean 
A. C. Dixon 
A. A. De Larme 
W. F. Dissette 
John A. Davis 
J. H. Davis 
Groves W. Drew 
I. N. Du Puy 
M. G. Dickinson 

E. H. Emett 
W. T. Elmore 
O. P. Eaches 

F. W. Farr 



CALL TO THE BUFFALO CONFERENCE 



B. F. Fellman 
H. H. Gill 

Frank M. Goodehild 
Joshua Gravett 
John R. Gunn 
William L. Haines 
M. E. Hare 
Charles H, S. Hicks 
John A. Hainer 
J. Heinrichs 
J. Q. A. Henry 
John C. Haswell 
J. W. Hoyt 

C. H. Heaton 
V. E. Hedberg 
C. T. Harper 

E. A. Harrar 
W. B. Hinson 
Albert Johnson 

F. W. Johnson 
T. C. Johnson 
David Lee Jamison 
Gove G. Johnson 
C. S. Kerfoot 
Volney P. Kinne 
George M. Knights 
\V. B. Kelley 
Charles M. Kessler 
Luther Keller 
Clarence Lark in 

G. A. Lawson 
H. C. Leach 
W. J. Lockhart 
Charles F. McKoy 
H. O. Meyer 

J. A. Maxwell 



V Z. Myers / 
Lawrence A, Meade 
W. C. Myers 
George McNeely 
Cortland Myers 
J. J. Muir 
R. B. McDanel 
John Muntz 
David Miller 
W. E. Needham 
Swaney Nelson 
F. W. O'Brien 
A. H. O'Brien 
A. E. Plue 
William L. Pettingill 
Arnold V. Pent 
Joseph B. Rogers 
W. H. Rogers 
J. F. Rake 
F. W. Randall 
John B. Remmey 
L. E. Reed 
A. J. Rowland 
W. B. Riley 
D. F. Rittenhouse 
Samuel Russell 
J. J. Ross 
H. F. Remington 
John A. Swanson 
Granville H. Sheip 
Alfred Schmitthenner 
John Snape 
S. H. Snashall 
M. T. Shelford 
William T. Sheppard 
J. B. Smith 



CALL TO THE BUFFALO CONFERENCE 



George W. Taft 
B. C. Taylor 
Cary S. Thomas 
H. Stewart Tillis 
M. C. Treat 
W. Leon Tucker 
Alex. Thomson 
Albert L. Townsend 
J. M. Tyson 
J. Francis Vought 
George M. Vercoe 
Frederick R. Vine 
Nathan E. Wood 



M. L. Wood 
T. J. Whitaker 
O. Lee Warren 
C. H. Woolston 
J. F. Watson 
Joshua E. Wills 
A. F. Williamson 
W. Ward Willis 
Walter Whitley 
J. W. Weddell 
A. C. Warner 
W. W. Weeks 
G. W. McPherson 



CONTENTS 

Chapter Page 

Introduction v 

By Curtis Lee Laws, D. D., Editor of The 

Watchman-Examiner. 

Call to the Buffalo Conference ix 

I. Opening Address 1 

By J. C. Massee, D. D., President of the Buf- 
falo Conference. 

II. Historic Baptist Principles 13 

By Frederick L. Anderson, Professor in New- 
ton Theological Institution. 

III. Fidelity to Our Baptist Heritage 27 

By Rev. Thomas Jefferson Villers, D. D., 
Pastor, First Baptist Church, Detroit, Mich. 

IV. The Divine Unity of Holy Scripture. ... 53 

By Rev. Frank M. GooDchild, D. D., Pastor, 
Central Baptist Church, New York City. 

V. The Significance of the Ordinances 73 

By Emory W. Hunt, D. D., LL. D., President, 
Bucknell University. 

VI. Northern Baptists and the Deity of 

Christ 81 

By John Marvin Dean, D. D., Director of the 
Dean Campaigns of Evangelism and Bible 
Study. 

VII. Historic Baptist Emphasis on Prayer... 95 

By Seldon W. Cummings, D. D., Pastor, First 
Baptist Church, Pasadena, Calif. 



CONTENTS 



Chapter Page 

VIII. An Unexpected Message 107 

By Rev. J. W. Porter, D. D., Editor, The 
Western Recorder. 

IX. The Bible at the Center of the Modern 

University 117 

By A. C. Dixon, D. D„ Professor, The Bible 
Institute, Los Angeles, Calif. 

X. The Baptist Program of Evangelism 141 

By W. W. Bustard, D. D., Pastor, Euclid Ave- 
nue Baptist Church, Cleveland, Ohio. 

XL Things Not Shaken 149 

By Cortland Myers, D. D., Pastor, Tremont 
Temple, Boston, Mass. 

XII. Modernism in Baptist Schools 165 

By W. B. Riley, D. D., Pastor, First Baptist 
Ch(urch, Minneapolis, Minn. 

y 

XIII. Baptists and World-wide Missions 189 

By J. Whitcomb Brougher, D. D., Pastor, 
Temple Baptist Church, Los Angeles, Calif, 






OPENING ADDRESS 



J. C. MASSEE, D. D. 

President at the Pre-Convention Conference 
Buffalo, New York, June 21, 1920 



OPENING ADDRESS 



Brethren, this is the Call which is responsible for 
this Conference : 

To all Baptists within the Bounds of the Northern Convention: 
Greeting : 

We view with increasing alarm the havoc which rationalism 
is working in our churches as evidenced by the drift upon 
the part of many of our ministers from the fundamentals of 
our holy faith. The teaching in many of our educational in- 
stitutions is proving disastrous to the faith of the young men 
and women who are to be the leaders of the future. A wide- 
spread and growing worldliness has crept into the churches, a 
worldliness which has robbed us of power and brought upon 
us open shame. 

We believe that there rests upon us as Baptists an immedi- 
ate and urgent duty to restate, reaffirm, and reemphasize the 
fundamentals of our New Testament faith. Beyond all doubt 
the vast majority of our Baptist people are as loyal as were 
our fathers to our Baptist principles and our Baptist policy, 
but this loyalty will not long continue, unless something is 
done to stay the rising tide of liberalism and rationalism and 
to preserve our principles in their simplicity and purity. 

Therefore, acting upon our own initiative as your brethren, 
we issue this call for a conference on " The Fundamentals of 
Our Baptist Faith," to be held in the Delaware Avenue Bap- 
tist Church of Buffalo, from 7 p. m., Monday, June 21, to 
9.30 p. m., Tuesday, June 22. These dates immediately pre- 
cede the meeting of the Northern Baptist Convention. 

All Baptists within the bounds of the Northern Convention 
are invited to attend this Conference. Let increasing prayer 
be made for the guidance and favor of God. 

The Committee issuing this Call is a self-appointed 
Committee. We acted entirely upon our own initia- 



[3] 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



tive. In the minds of the members of the Committee 
responsible for the program of this Conference its pur- 
pose is purely that of conference- It is not legislative. 
We trust that your courtesy and forbearance will per- 
mit the Conference to proceed along the lines for 
which it was called. 

The constituency of this Conference is purely a vol- 
untary one. It is not a delegated assembly. It is not 
responsible to any one. We are here because we have 
chosen to come. Our deliberations and conclusions 
will be those we voluntarily reach. The design of the 
Conference is to furnish a forum open to all Baptists 
in the interests of the time-honored, historic funda- 
mentals of our Baptist and New Testament faith. In 
other years, in connection with the meetings of the 
Northern Baptist Convention, certain small groups 
have constituted themselves steering committees of 
the Convention and have assumed for themselves re- 
sponsibilities to determine in secret conference courses 
of action for the whole body- We propose that this 
Conference shall differ radically both from that con- 
ception and from those efforts. If influences are be- 
gotten here which shall be carried into the Convention, 
if conclusions are reached here which would seek to in- 
fluence action in the Convention, then all Baptists in 
the bounds of the Northern Baptist Convention, having 
open access to the Conference, may have privilege of 
participation in its counsels and thus in determining 
its influence upon the Convention. For that reason our 
call was directed and addressed to " all Baptists in the 
Northern Baptist Convention." 

Regarding the reason for and timeliness of this call 
to conference, we who issued it are assured that some 
of our treasured historic fundamentals of the faith are 
in jeopardy. The situation in our schools and semi- 
naries is critical. The faculty of a school or seminary 



4] 



OPENING ADDRESS 



may be nine-tenths sound, sensible, and spiritual, but if 
such school permits the presence and the unrestricted 
teachings of even one or two men in the faculty who 
undermine the faith, upset the convictions, and alienate 
the hearts of the students, that institution becomes and 
remains unsafe until it has purged itself of that source 
of pernicious percolating poison. We do not acknowl- 
edge the necessity of furnishing specific cases wherein 
this situation obtains, though we are quite able to do 
that. Everybody knows of the present drift away from 
the ancient landmarks, of the present tendency toward 
modernism in theology and rationalism in philosophy, 
as well as the wide-spread materialism in life which has 
long since passed the point where it is simply disturb- 
ing, and has reached a condition which can only be 
described as destructive. 

We are, we believe, justly concerned at the presence 
in our schools of the radical, scientific attitude of mind 
toward the Bible, of the materialistic evolutionary 
theory of life and the extreme propaganda in behalf of 
the gospel of social betterment in substitution for the 
gospel of individual regeneration. 

We are equally distressed, and justly so, at the grow- 
ing tendency on the part of some ministers and laymen 
to advocate openly the practical abandonment of the 
historic ordinances of the church and the creation of an 
open church-membership. This advocacy appears in 
many modifications of opinion, from those who advo- 
cate a simple liberal construction of Baptist policy and 
practice to those who would make the church of Christ 
equally the home of all men who have a semblance of 
reverence for God without further distinction of creed 
or further demand upon life, and apart from any vital 
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. We have been uneasy 
in the presence of these demands of liberalism as an indi- 
cation that some among us would join those from with- 



[5] 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



out our Baptist circles, who insistently pursue the vain 
purpose to promote organic church union throughout 
Christendom, beginning with Protestantism, and the 
discarding of all distinctive principles, practices, and 
preachings. 

To some of us at least, there is serious menace in the 
fact that practically all our schools seeking support 
from the churches represented by the Northern Baptist 
Convention, are beyond even the indirect control of 
those churches through the Convention. Self-perpetu- 
ating boards of trustees easily entrench men in posi- 
tions of responsibility as teachers, who maintain their 
positions on the ground of pleasing personality, per- 
sonal friendships, or even family ties, or in the interest 
of New Theology and the modernistic view of our 
Christian faith and the Christian church. We covet 
the frank discussion of this situation. A recent edi- 
torial in The Baptist indicates that not only the pro- 
moters of this conference, but the leaders of the de- 
nomination at large recognize the necessity for im- 
mediate and serious attention to the situation in our 
schools. For the schools are the fountains from which 
all our youth must slake their thirst for knowledge 
and receive the life refreshings of their intellectual 
and moral faculties. To change the figure, our schools 
are the hotbeds from which we must in future years 
continue to transplant the individual slips that in the 
field of our activities will grow into the leaders of our 
denominational life. What should be done in this 
situation? What can we do? Let us take counsel 
together. 

Responsibility for the language of the Call as printed 
is in the Brooklyn Committee. 

Responsibility for the Conference belongs to them and 
to those who signed the Call, the consent of every signer 
having been obtained before his signature was affixed. 



6] 



OPENING ADDRESS 



Responsibility for the program itself belongs to the 
Brooklyn Committee. 

What shall be said by the individual speakers on the 
program is to be determined by those speakers alone, 
and responsibility for their utterances will be theirs as 
the responsibility for all utterances from the floor of this 
Conference will belong to those who make utterance. In 
that connection, it is perhaps wise to say now that the 
chairman of this committee, having been asked by the 
committee to preside during the sessions of this Confer- 
ence, will tolerate no interruptions of speakers. Since 
ample opportunities of open forum for discussion have 
been provided, criticisms, questions, and other tempta- 
tions to interruption must be held in abeyance until the 
hour of the open forum. 

The Brooklyn Committee has earnestly desired that 
the Conference should adhere to the purpose expressed 
in the Call, to restate, reaffirm, and reemphasize the 
fundamentals of our New Testament faith. The Con- 
ference is called frankly and openly in the interest of 
the conservative interpretation of our historic position 
and principles. While we would earnestly say, 
" Cursed be he that removeth the ancient landmarks," 
yet we would not write nor consent to the writing of 
a formal creed. Orthodoxy, like the virtue of a 
woman, need not be, indeed cannot be, defined, but 
when once lost leaves an ineradicable taint upon those 
who have departed therefrom. Therefore we would 
seek to save our Baptist family from the disastrous 
results of a departure from the faith once for all de- 
livered to the saints, and we would save them before 
they are lost. 

We believe in the essential loyalty of the great mass 
of Baptists to the New Testament. We are willing to 
trust the body of believers in our Baptist brotherhood. 
We are not seriously concerned for them except that 



7] 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



they shall be supplied with and assured of the proper 
leadership ; " Like priest, like people." The multitude 
can be led astray by false teachers who are willing still 
to maintain the terminology of orthodoxy while in- 
jecting into it a new content which, when finally 
understood by those who have given their confidence 
to leaders employing it, will have subverted the faith 
of the people and will have instituted a final apostasy 
disastrous at once to the church and to the world. 

If we would save them, we must cease now to let 
Philistine teachers plow with our educational heifer, lest 
our denominational Samson, stripped of the goodly gar- 
ments of his faith and virtue, fall under the witchery 
of a scholastic Delilah, and be permanently shorn of 
his strength, blinded as to his spiritual eyes, and 
bound to the unspeakable service of godless and mock- 
ing masters. 

Some years ago I stood in the tropical gardens sur- 
rounding Tampa Bay Hotel in the city of Tampa, 
Florida. Among other things of special interest, 
apart from the varied flora of the garden, was a cage 
filled with chattering, laughing, prank-playing mon- 
keys. Some practical joker had thrust into this very 
large cage one big, sadly distressed cat. The poor 
cat was very anxious to leave the cage. There were 
friends on the outside quite willing to aid his escape. 
Again and again the door of the cage was opened, and 
the cat invited to come forth. He made many at- 
tempts to do so. But every time, just as he reached 
the point from which he could escape, a watchful 
monkey, supported by his own caudal appendage from 
the transverse bar above the cage door, reached down 
and, catching the cat by the tail, ignominiously flung 
him back across the cage. I was never more amused, 
hardly ever more filled with sympathy at the situation 
of a helpless victim than at the situation of that cat. 

r 8 1 



OPENING ADDRESS 



The incident has many times been reproduced in my 
mind. Even now it provides a rather adequate illus- 
tration of the situation in which we find ourselves. 
Our educational cages contain many scholastic 
monkeys, who with Darwinian complacency confess 
their parentage. A student in such an institution is 
like the cat in the Tampa Bay cage, with the ridiculous 
hand of some evolutionist upon the tail of his religious 
beliefs. It seems to me high time for us to take the 
hands of our theological, philosophic, and scientific 
monkeys off the tail of our denominational convic- 
tions. 

We are often asked why we should concern our- 
selves with what others teach. We are told that the 
truth will take care of itself. That is just a new 
specious phase of the appeal for personal liberty made 
by all destroyers of the rights and securities of others. 
It belongs at once to the Model Liquor License League 
and the liberal modernist in school and church. Even 
if we were willing to let them atone, they will not let 
us alone ! Like all German philosophy, theirs is at 
once a philosophy of materialism and of conquest. I 
am reminded of an incident which aptly illustrates 
what I wish to say. Our street-cars in New York are 
often crowded to the point of practical suffocation. 
We are so crowded together that we can neither move 
nor see in any direction save at those angles from 
which with immovable bodies we are able to turn our 
heads. In that situation some time ago, a woman 
sought to find the pocket of her dress in which she had 
buttoned her purse. Her first effort failed. The gen- 
tleman sitting at her right, against whom she was 
hopelessly wedged, since he could not rise, courteously 
offered to assist her. She courteously refused his as- 
sistance. A second time she tried, and a second time 
he proffered his help. Again she declined. When he 



[9 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



offered the third time to help her in her unavailing 
search, she became indignant. He apologized for his 
repeated offers, saying, " Madam, I would not annoy 
you, nor persist in my efforts to help you find your 
pocket, but you have already three times unbuttoned 
my suspenders." Now the trouble with the men who 
endanger our denominational integrity is that in their 
vain search for their own pockets of privilege, they 
are unbuttoning the suspenders of our security. 

When we are told that it is idle to protest, we have 
this to say, " We shall see whether it be vain or not." 
When we are advised that a protest now is inoppor- 
tune, we ask, When shall we call attention to the situ- 
ation and make a stand against it? When all our 
schools have been captured by liberalism? When our 
denominational machinery is under the control of the 
modernists, and when our people generally have been 
delivered to the teachings of the radical theologians in 
their pulpits? 

In making such a protest and inviting such a confer- 
ence as this, are we enemies of our organized work? 
We do not fear a comparison of our activities as ex- 
pressed in our churches with any others. We invite 
attention to any utterance of ours expressing disloyalty 
to our denomination or to our Convention. If we at 
any time have seemed to be out of sympathy with any 
effort of the denomination, that sympathy has been 
withdrawn not from the denomination nor from the 
Convention, but from individual leaders who have un- 
dertaken to exercise lordship in a situation which de- 
manded more wisdom and more courtesy than they 
were able to find for it. 

What is to be the effect of this Conference on the 
Convention? That is altogether problematical; that 
is beyond our computation or our control. We cannot 
escape carrying- into the Convention the impressions 



10 



OPENING ADDRESS 



and conclusions which this Conference may beget. Of 
this be assured, we will not carry into the Convention 
because of this Conference, any less loyalty, affection, 
and fraternity, but more of all these than ever before. 
We will not go with swords sharpened to conflict, but 
with spirits prayerfully called to unity on the basis of 
our historic evangelical Baptist faith. 

Therefore, in formally opening this Conference, I 
voice the earnest prayer and constant desire of the 
men who have called it and of the Brooklyn Com- 
mittee who have arranged for it, that we may here 
abide in the bonds of unity in Christ our Lord, and 
that the results of our Conference may be to his glory, 
the furtherance of his gospel in the earth, and the 
further establishment of those great truths, dear to our 
fathers, and to us as dear as life itself. 



11 



II 

HISTORIC BAPTIST PRINCIPLES 



FREDERICK L. ANDERSON, D. D. 

Professor in Newton Theological Institution 



HISTORIC BAPTIST PRINCIPLES 



The Baptists are no modern sect, but were among the 
original Protestants of the sixteenth century. They be- 
long historically to that primary group, which contains 
the Lutherans, the Reformed, the Presbyterians, and the 
Episcopalians. Their greatest leader was Balthasar 
Hubmaier, rector of the University of Ingolstadt, 
preacher at the imperial cathedral at Ratisbon, ranked in 
the Roman Catholic Index with Luther, Zwingli, and 
Calvin as one of " the (four) heads and leaders of the 
Protestant heretics." He alone among these Reformers 
died a martyr to his faith, being burned at the stake in 
Vienna in the forty-eighth year of his age, and his wife, 
an even more determined Baptist, being drowned in the 
Danube three days later, the first leading Baptist woman. 
Our spiritual ancestors were known as Anabaptists or 
Rebaptizers in Germany, Switzerland, and Holland. It 
is the best opinion that they came through Holland to 
England in the seventeenth century. 

The Protestant Reformation had many sides — eco- 
nomic, political, social, cultural — but whatever else it 
may have been, it was fundamentally a great revival of 
real religion, of an experience of immediate or direct 
communion with God through Christ. So great was the 
power of God in it that it became nothing less than a 
spiritual revolution, and its external results, which were 
immediately apparent, have changed the face of civili- 
zation. 

This mighty experience of God, being immediate, 
could not only dispense with priests, sacraments, con^ 
fession, liturgies, and all formalisms, but felt them to be 

f 15 1 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



alien to itself. Since it was an experience of full and 
free forgiveness and reconciliation, it rejected penance, 
absolution, indulgences, and purgatory. Since it felt in 
itself a new heaven-born freedom, it had no further use 
for popes, bishops, creeds, or external authority. The 
Baptists went the whole length in these lines. Their 
Protestantism has always been radical and self-consis- 
tent. Indeed, the Roman Catholic Archbishop Hughes 
of New York in his catechism, published in the fifties, 
called them " the only consistent Protestants." They 
have tried to carry Protestant principles through to their 
legitimate conclusions. They are Protestants of Protes- 
tants — furthest from Rome except Quakers, Unitarians, 
and a few such small bodies. A learned Congregational 
leader, speaking at Newton a few years since, said, 
" There is only one denomination which has had a more 
glorious career than my own, and that is the Baptist 
denomination." We have had four hundred years of 
noble history. The past at least is secure. 

The fundamental principle of the Baptists, in common 
with many other evangelicals, has always been the gospel, 
which is the essence of all Scripture. They have through 
their whole history been out-and-out evangelicals. With 
them the gospel is the determining factor not only in the 
theory of the church, but also in its actual external 
organization and polity. Among Baptists, the gospel 
creates the atmosphere, sets the ideals, molds the thought 
and feeling, shapes methods and machinery. Legiti- 
mately, the gospel should dictate even such externals as 
our choice of music and singers, our form of public 
worship, the shape of our church building, and certainly 
the symbolism of our ordinances. 

But some one asks most fittingly, What is the gospel? 
The answer, which Baptists have always drawn from the 
New Testament, is perfectly plain. The gospel is the 
good news of the free forgiveness of sin and eternal life 



[16 



HISTORIC BAPTIST PRINCIPLES 

(beginning now and going on forever) through a vital 
union with the crucified and risen Christ, which brings 
men into union and communion with God. This salva- 
tion is graciously offered on the sole conditions of re- 
pentance and faith in Christ. It is a God-given salva- 
tion, all of grace,, having in it the divine power of 
regeneration and sanctification. It is not self-earned or 
self-won, though it depends on the whole-hearted self- 
surrender of the sinner to Jesus Christ — to believe in him, 
to love him, and to do his will, to serve men as he served 
them. It is God's unspeakable gift. 

It also contains a message of hope for the world, the 
promise of a new earth in which God's will shall be done 
as unanimously, gladly, and intelligently as it is done in 
heaven. Whether this shall be ushered in by Christ, 
working in and through his people, or by his sudden ap- 
pearing in glory, is a question which I have not now 
the time or the disposition to discuss. There have always 
been two opinions among Baptists with regard to that 
subject. 

It is very difficult to find one phrase to express the 
fundamental principle of the Baptists, standing on this 
gospel platform. Possibly the best is the sentence 
dropped from the lips of that dear old saint of God, 
Doctor Gubelmann : " The fundamental contention of the 
Baptists is the spirituality of Christianity." 

Now let us enumerate some of the inferences which 
Baptists have deduced from these basic statements, and 
which, we are glad to say, have now won their way 
wholly or in part into the mind and heart of our Protes- 
tant world. 

1. The Immediacy of the Communion of the Soul 
with God 

This principle demands that no priest, organized church 
ritual, sacraments, ordinances, creeds, or anything else 

[17 1 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



can stand between the sonl and God. There is a secret 
place of the Most High where the Father speaks to His 
child and the child speaks to his Father, and this is the 
very seat and center of religion. Nothing extraneous 
can intrude here. The Baptists are therefore radically 
opposed to priests, sacraments, and all formalisms, are 
anti-sacerdotalists and anti-sacramentarians of the deep- 
est dye, and are the natural enemies of ecclesiasticism or 
churchianity. 

2. The Voluntariness of Religion 

All true religion is at its root purely personal, the free 
response of the free spirit to the gracious spirit of God. 
Forced religion is no religion at all. Its very life is its 
willing devotion. Consequently no one — parent, pastor, 
Church, or State — has a right to compel any act in the 
sphere of religion. Even the desire to compel a religious 
act shows a fundamental ignorance of the very nature of 
religion itself. 

This principle clearly prohibits the forced baptism of 
infants. The infant has rights, even against his parents, 
as the laws of every state declare, and one of them is the 
right to self-determination in matters of religion. An- 
other corollary of this Baptist principle is the doctrine 
of the separation of the Church and State. The State 
cannot rule the Church, prescribe its beliefs, or force 
contributions from any citizen in the shape of taxes for 
the support of religious opinions in which he does not 
believe. It must grant, not religious toleration, but com- 
plete religious liberty to all. Nor, on the other hand, 
should the Church, as such, strive to rule the State or 
seek its aid. Christians, in their capacity of citizens, 
should be active in all that concerns the common good 
and should make their voices heard and their influences 
felt, but the Church, as such, should remain separate 
from the State. They are not mutually hostile — indeed, 

[18] 



HISTORIC BAPTIST PRINCIPLES 

they should be mutually friendly ; but they should recog- 
nize the fact that they function in different though 
closely related spheres. 

3. The Equality and Liberty of Believers 

If communion with God is immediate, and every be- 
liever has an equal right to the fulness of the blessing 
in Christ on purely spiritual terms, all Christians are on 
an equality in their relations to God. In this sphere 
there is and can be no special privilege. The Duke of 
Wellington knelt in St. Paul's beside a laborer, who, 
recognizing him, started to rise. " Stay, man," said the 
duke, " we are all on a level here." 

From this principle spring our doctrines of the de- 
mocracy of the local church, of the invalidity of the dis- 
tinction between clergy and laity which is foreign and 
repugnant to the inner spirit of our religion, and of the 
independency of the local church. This independency is 
a necessary corollary of democracy and indispensable to 
its preservation, as is clearly set forth in the noble dec- 
laration prefixed to the by-laws of the Northern Baptist 
Convention. The Convention is thereby constituted not 
a legislative, but a purely advisory body, having no 
authority save that moral authority which comes from 
its faith, wisdom, and character, and the molding of its 
decisions by the Holy Spirit. 

But immediate communion with God guarantees not 
only the equality, but also the liberty of all believers. In 
the end every Christian is responsible to God, and to God 
alone. What he hears in the secret place, he must tell, 
and he has not only the duty but the right to tell it, and 
must be granted freely large liberty in thus reporting 
his experiences of the grace of God. There is only one 
limitation here, and that is that within the organized 
church of Jesus, founded as it is on the gospel, opposi- 
tion to the fundamental principles of the gospel cannot 

[19] 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



be permitted. Otherwise evangelical Christianity com- 
mits suicide. 

Still even here there should be moderation and dis- 
crimination. We should distinguish between prejudices 
and realities, between particular statements and the truth 
stated, between our definition and the thing defined, be- 
tween form and substance. We should not only allow, 
but indeed cherish, divergencies and varieties within the 
evangelical type. Only thus can our denomination be 
enriched, broadened, and kept fresh and vigorous. No 
three Christians could have been much more different 
than Peter, John, and Paul, and yet they could give each 
other the right hand of fellowship. Inclusion within the 
limits of the gospel and not exclusion must be our ideal. 
It is a fact that all other denominations from Roman 
Catholics down to Quakers retain men of very different 
views in their fellowship. Why should not we do the 
same? 

No two Christians are alike, no two have the same 
experience, no two see alike the many-sided Christ in 
whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are 
hidden. None of us have yet attained to a full under- 
standing of the Son of God and the unsearchable riches 
of his salvation. There is always a possibility that some 
one else may have penetrated farther into the secret of 
godliness than we have, and may have attained a larger 
or profounder view of God than we. So while on the 
one hand we must guard with jealous care the heavenly 
treasure of the gospel against all who would dissipate or 
rationalize it away, must fight for it, and die for it, if 
need be, on the other hand we must be equally vigilant 
against spiritual pride, hereditary prejudice, narrow dog- 
matism, a desire to force our views on others equally 
spiritual and equally Christian, and an unwillingness to 
count others, who also commune with our Christ, better 
than ourselves. (Phil. 2:3.) 

[20] 



HISTORIC BAPTIST PRINCIPLES 

And here comes in the question of the imposition of a 
creed. Now I am in favor of creeds. I like the man 
who believes something and believes it with all his heart, 
can tell what it is, and proclaims it from the housetops. 
Only the great believers have ever influenced men largely 
and beneficially. I have made it a practice every five 
or ten years to write my own creed for my own satisfac- 
tion, and some of these creeds have been published. I 
see no objection and indeed much good in a group of 
agreeing brethren formulating their creed and publishing 
it, if they wish. But in view of the equality and liberty 
of believers, no man has a right to try to impose his 
creed on others. He has the right to hold the creed, to 
proclaim it, to seek to win others to it, but he has no 
right to demand that others shall sign or favor it, if it 
contravenes their experiences in the secret place or their 
Christian judgment. Nor has he any right to cast them 
out of his love and fellowship so long as they hold the 
gospel fast. 

Consequently I oppose any creedal statement whatever 
in the Northern Baptist Convention, or any other formal 
gathering, because it would be sure to be regarded as an 
attempt to impose that creed on all Baptists contrary to 
their liberty in the gospel to differ from us, and, as we 
could not all agree, it would surely be divisive and 
exclusive in its tendencies. This is just the opposite of 
seeking to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bonds 
of peace. 

4. The Spirituality of the Church 

Those who have surrendered themselves to Christ, 
immediately find themselves in union with those who 
have like precious faith and like communion with God. 
They are brethren and recognize each other as such, and 
they inevitably find each other locally and unite in a 
local loving society of those who call Jesus Lord in 

[21] 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



spirit. On this fact of the spiritual life is founded the 
Baptist theory of the true church. The phrase comes 
from the Roman Catholics. They define the true church 
as that Christian body outside of which there is no salva- 
tion, and declare that true church is the Roman Catholic 
Church, that external visible fellowship which has the 
pope at its head and which is governed by its bishops 
throughout the world. They firmly hold that outside of 
this true church there is no salvation. 

Baptists have never called themselves the true church, 
in the Catholic sense. Of course, they claim that their 
churches are rightly organized, and if it can be pointed 
out that in any respect they are wrongly organized, they 
stand ready to organize them right. But we have never 
for a moment even thought, much less said, that outside 
our body there is no salvation. In fact, the Baptist 
theory of the true church is the broadest and most catho- 
lic in existence. I quote with hearty approval the noble 
declaration of the Texas Baptists on this subject, a 
declaration which I read to my seniors every year : 

We hold the immemorial position of Baptists that all true 
believers in Christ are saved, having been born again, and this 
without the intervention of preacher, priest, ordinance, sacra- 
ment, or church. Therefore we profoundly rejoice in our 
spiritual union with all who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sin- 
cerity and truth. We hold them as brothers in the saving grace 
of Christ and heirs with us of life and immortality. We love 
their fellowship and maintain that the spiritual union of all 
believers is now and ever will be a blessed reality. [This is the 
true exegesis of the phrase, " That they all may be one " — 
Christ's always answered, not his still unanswered, prayer.] 
This spiritual union does not depend on organizations, or forms, 
or rituals. It is deeper, higher, broader, and more stable than 
any or all organizations. We hold that all people who (truly) 
believe in Christ as their personal Saviour are our brothers in 
the common salvation, whether they be in the Catholic com- 
munion, or in a Protestant communion, or in any other com- 
munion, or in no communion. 



[22 



HISTORIC BAPTIST PRINCIPLES 

How lofty and free are these words, to which all Bap- 
tists say a hearty " Amen ! " How they refute the com- 
mon slander that Baptists hold that no one is saved 
unless he is immersed ! Yet that is believed by three 
pedobaptists out of four and is the greatest obstacle to 
Baptist progress as such. One of our pressing duties is 
to nail that slander on all possible occasions. Its increase 
is due to our shameful cowardice in proclaiming our 
principles during the last twenty-five years. Instead of 
being the narrowest of Christian bodies, we are in our 
principles the broadest and most liberal, and my blood 
boils when I hear outsiders and, indeed, some intelligent 
Baptists, maintaining the opposite. 

So, then, on the basis of the gospel, our fundamental 
principle, we maintain that the true church, outside of 
which there is no salvation, is the company of all those 
in heaven and on earth who are ruled by the spirit of 
Christ. 

It follows that the local church must be in like manner 
a spiritual body, created, rilled, nourished and guided by 
the Spirit ; that it can have as members only believers, no 
infants or unconverted persons — a regenerate church- 
membership ; that it must be democratic and independent 
save as ruled by the spirit of Christ; that its leaders, 
teachers, and officers should be those whom the church 
recognizes as especially fitted, called, and filled by the 
Spirit. All its external forms and activities must express 
its fundamentally spiritual character. 

5. Yet We Are not Impracticable and Fanatical 
Votaries of the Inner Life 

While we have and always hope to have our hearts in 
the heavens, we keep, and always intend to keep, our 
feet on the earth. In other words, we believe that our 
spiritual religion will have some very concrete and prac- 
tical external manifestations. 

[23 1 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



We have always believed that there should be a local 
organized church, independent in its government, indeed, 
but united by Christian love and the desire to propagate 
the gospel with all other sister churches in voluntary 
missionary organizations. 

We have always believed in the Word. This spiritual 
religion of ours is not unintelligent. It does not propa- 
gate itself by magic or mere enthusiasm. It depends on 
the truth. Its method is preaching — the appeal of the 
reasonable spirit of God through human lips to the rea- 
sonable spirit of man. The gospel, which is the very 
essence of the Holy Bible, is fundamental, and the great 
principles of Scripture the authoritative court of appeal, 
which will save the church from vagaries and fanaticism. 

We have always believed in trie ministry, though not 
in the deep-set distinction between the clergy and laity. 
That is to say, we believe that some of the brethren, con- 
vinced that they have been called of God to this service 
and so recognized by others, must be set apart to give 
their whole time to preaching the gospel and carrying on 
the work of Christian love. They have no special grace, 
nor any special privilege of approach to God, nor any 
spiritual authority except that which comes from Chris- 
tian character and experience. All Christians have not 
only the right, but the duty to preach and render loving 
service in the name of Christ. Every Christian a mis- 
sionary in his own sphere and place is the method of 
Jesus, the slogan of the coming century. The only dif- 
ference is that one set of Christians are recognized as 
called and freed from life's labors to give their whole 
time to Christian service, and the other set are called to 
do their Christian service in, through, and amid the tasks 
of the workaday world. Both are equally called and 
ordained of God. They have the same essential duties 
and privileges. They are equally under obligation to 
maintain the highest moral and spiritual standards. 

[24 1 



HISTORIC BAPTIST PRINCIPLES 

They must in all their several spheres be men of prayer 
and men of God. The one natural and practicable thing 
to do is to find in the class who give their whole time to 
Christian service, the teachers and leaders of the 
churches, and to give them, as pastors and teachers, the 
honor and respect which is due to their task and their 
devotion to it. 

We still believe in the ordinances. The Friends 
(Quakers) and we are closely allied, but they have gone 
one step farther than we have felt that we could go. Of 
all Christians, except the Friends and Unitarians, we put 
the least stress on the ordinances. As the Texas Bap- 
tists so nobly say, men may be saved without ordinances. 
There is no redeeming grace in the ordinances, or 
peculiar grace of any kind, which cannot be equally 
found in prayer and Christian service and which is not 
common to every act of obedience and true worship. 
But while, as evangelicals, we reject as alien to our faith 
all mere rites, sacraments, and ceremonies, especially if 
they pretend to give some peculiar grace which cannot be 
gained from immediate communion with God in prayer 
and in the Word or in loving service in the name of 
Christ, we do find two ordinances, baptism and the 
Lord's Supper, which originated in the primitive spiritual 
age of the church and had the sanction of the Lord Jesus 
and the early church behind them. These we accept, not 
as sacraments, rites, or ceremonies, but as fitting and 
useful symbols of spiritual religion, emblematic Gospels, 
visible words, acted parables, moving pictures of Chris- 
tian history and Christian experience, preachers of the 
profoundest Christian truths. They beautifully express 
the experience of the inner life. 

If the symbolism of these ordinances is their one claim 
to perpetuation, baptism should be preserved in its purity 
as immersion, which alone rightly and fully expresses 
the evangelical truth of the believer's death to sin and 

[25 1 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



resurrection to new life in Christ ; and baptism, adminis- 
tered only once as the symbol of the new birth, should 
precede the Lord's Supper. 

The serious distinctively Baptist problem is how to re- 
tain the New Testament symbol of immersion and still 
keep it in its proper place of logical subordination, thus 
avoiding a reputation for ritualism and externalism 
which is repugnant to our whole history and every fiber 
of our being. 

And, now, what shall we say in conclusion? Simply 
this : These principles of ours have stood the test of 
time; they are essential to the progress of our religion; 
they come from the very core of the gospel; they are 
already largely victorious; they are bound to win, for 
they are, we believe, the truth. They are therefore sure 
to be enshrined in the Christian church of the New Age 
through our agency or that of others. 

Let us proclaim them, then, modestly and kindly in- 
deed, realizing that many others hold them in part, but 
also with fervent conviction. Let Baptists lift up their 
heads, and lift up their voices too. Let them tell every- 
body that while they believe in immersion and intend to 
retain it, immersion is only an insignificant part of the 
wide reach of glorious truth for which they stand. Let 
them dissipate the deadly mist of ignorant popular mis- 
apprehension and prejudice which surrounds their name. 
Let them sound out the gospel in all its fulness and im- 
plication fearlessly, constantly, and with the faith that 
overcomes the world. And let them in private conduct, 
in the local church, and in the great assembly live and 
thus commend the truth they preach. 



[26 



Ill 

FIDELITY TO OUR BAPTIST HERITAGE 



THOMAS JEFFERSON VILLERS, D. D., LL. D. 

Pastor First Baptist Church, Detroit, Mich. 



FIDELITY TO OUR BAPTIST HERITAGE 



Artemus Ward used to talk about the time when the 
Mayflowers came over in the Pilgrim and brought Ply- 
mouth Rock with 'em. When that frail craft dropped 
anchor off New England, she carried a cargo more en- 
during than stone and more precious than gold. " She 
was freighted with principles, convictions, institutions, 
and laws." Her passengers were few; but they were 
tall men, sun-crowned. In all that constitutes true 
soul-greatness, despite their poverty of purse, they 
matched our high mountains and broad plains. They 
were men with empires in their bosoms and new eras 
in their brains. 

As the Mayflower was laden with merchandise 
richer than her British owners ever dreamed, so are 
we the heirs of other and better things than acres or 
dollars. Our fathers bequeathed to us a heritage of 
principles, convictions, institutions, and laws ; a heritage 
which we cherish because its price was their blood ; 
the heritage of soul-liberty, the new world's distinct 
and priceless contribution to political science and the 
church universal ; the heritage of a regenerate church- 
membership, a notion scouted for centuries, but now 
so commonly held that few know it to have been a con- 
viction once peculiar to us ; the heritage of culture, mind 
according well with soul, the sacrifices of primitive 
years being supplemented by ever-increasing benefac- 
tions till now our educational plant has leaped beyond 
the eighty million dollar mark; the heritage too, of 
world evangelism, for to us belongs the inextinguisha- 
ble glory of Carey, the father of modern missions, and 

[29] 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



of Judson, the first missionary in these latter days to 
set foot on an unmixed heathen soil. Let me rehearse 
these facts a little more in detail. 

The words of Bancroft are familiar to us all: " Free- 
dom of conscience, unlimited freedom of mind, was 
from the first the trophy of the Baptists." In this he 
agrees with Skeats, the English historian, who declares 
that " It is the singular and distinguished honor of 
the Baptists to have repudiated from their earliest his- 
tory all coercive power over the consciences and actions 
of men with reference to religion. They were the 
protoevangelists of the voluntary principle." 

For the first three hundred years, Christianity was a 
forbidden religion. Imperial power sought to suppress 
it as a depraved and immoderate superstition. Chris- 
tians endured a great fight of afflictions from Jew and 
Gentile alike. They were publicly whipped. They 
were dragged by the heels through the streets. Their 
limbs were disjointed. Their noses and ears were cut 
off. Their eyes were dug out. Sharp knives were 
run under their nails. Melted lead was poured over 
their bodies. They were drowned, beheaded, crucified. 
They were ground between stones, thrown from high 
buildings, torn by beasts, smothered in lime-kilns, 
broiled on gridirons, scraped to death with sharp shells. 

These horrors culminated in the dawn of the fourth 
century, when Diocletian issued three edicts in swift 
succession, commanding that all churches be de- 
stroyed, all Bibles burned, all Christians deprived of 
public office and civil rights. For eight years fire and 
sword, rack and cross, wild beasts and beastly men did 
their deadly work. Christ's people were killed all the 
day long. In one month 17,000 suffered death ; 144,000 
were martyred in Egypt alone ; while of those con- 
demned to banishment and slavery 700,000 died. In 
the year 312 Constantine conquered Rome, and put on 

[30] 



FIDELITY TO OUR BAPTIST HERITAGE 

the crown of the Western Empire. Eleven years later, 
by defeating Licinius at Chalcedon, he became sole 
master of the Roman world. He saw in Christianity a 
unifying force which he could turn to his own advan- 
tage. He favored Christians; restored their confis- 
cated property ; rebuilt their places of worship ; became 
a nominal Christian himself; felt that the suppression 
of heresy was a political necessity ; turned persecutor ; 
leveled pagan temples throughout his dominions ; con- 
demned to the flames any Jew who threw a stone at 
a Christian convert; made it a penal offense for a 
Christian to embrace the Jewish faith ; forbade the as- 
sembling of Arians and Donatists for worship; de- 
molished their churches, and banished their bishops. 
Then in 324, by making Christianity the religion of the 
State, he administered a blow from which the Church 
has not yet fully recovered. For in that unholy alli- 
ance of Church and State lay the germs of the papacy, 
with its fiendish Inquisition, an engine of oppression 
which surpassed all human and inhuman devices for 
confiscating men's property, torturing men's bodies, 
and coercing men's consciences. 

From the fourth century, the time of Constantine, to 
the sixteenth century, the time of Luther, civil rulers, 
allied with ecclesiastical officials, claimed the right to 
dictate creeds and compel assent thereto. From popes 
and councils Luther and Zwingli and Calvin appealed 
to Scripture as the final and supreme authority in mat- 
ters of religion. But not one of these Reformers advo- 
cated the freedom of the church from secular control. 
Not one of them consistently recognized the sacred 
and inalienable rights of the individual conscience. In 
Switzerland the exponent of soul-liberty was not 
Zwingli at Zurich. His statue there rightly represents 
him with a Bible in his right hand and a sword in his 
left. Not Calvin at Geneva, who openly advocated 

r 3i i 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



compulsory worship, and whose good name is badly 
scorched by the burning of Servetus. Not these, but 
Baptists like Sattler, who, before his tongue was torn 
out and his body burned, penned at Schleitheim in 
1527 the first Confession of Faith, in which men 
claimed for themselves and demanded for others the 
boon of a free conscience ; and Mantz, the noted 
Hebrew scholar, who for the crime of rebaptizing 
adults was thrust into prison, loaded with chains, and 
then sentenced to be drowned. Led through the fish- 
market and shambles, he preached to Zurich's people 
as he went ; his old mother walking by his side, brush- 
ing away her tears, and exhorting him to suffer bravely 
for Jesus' sake. He was put into a boat, his hands 
were tied together and looped over his knees ; a stick 
was stuck between his arms and his legs; the black 
cap was drawn over his head ; then, while uttering the 
prayer, " Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit," 
he was thrown overboard into the lake. 

In Germany, Luther was so far from espousing the 
cause of soul-liberty that he said of the Anabaptists, 
" Let the sword exercise its rights over them." Even 
the irenic Melancthon denounced our forefathers as " a 
diabolical sect, not to be tolerated," and advocated the 
sword as the most effective argument against their 
views. The German apostles of freedom were not 
Lutherans, but Baptists like Hubmaier, who, despite 
his learning, eloquence, and acknowledged piety, was 
hounded from city to city, until seized by order of the 
emperor and imprisoned at Vienna. Refusing to stul- 
tify his conscience and renounce his faith, he was tor- 
tured with red-hot pincers on his way to the head- 
man's block, where the murderous ax fell flashing 
down, and his headless body was burned. Three days 
later, his faithful wife, with a stone tied to her neck, 
was flung from a bridge into the Danube. 



[32 



FIDELITY TO OUR BAPTIST HERITAGE 

The Netherlands tell a similar story. They be- 
longed to the domain of Charles V, who claimed the 
right to regulate their religion. In 1535 he issued an 
edict, commanding that all rebaptizers be put to death 
by fire. If a man repented of his new faith, he was so 
far forgiven as to be beheaded. If a penitent woman 
confessed her " error," she was tenderly spared the 
flames, and was buried alive. By 1546 the number of 
these Baptist martyrs had reached the awful total of 
30,000. Philip II continued his father's butchery. 
Duke Alva, the new king's chief adviser, urged that 
these Dutch " men of butter " could be ruled only by 
the sword. Give him an army, and he would pour into 
the royal coffers a stream of treasure a yard deep. 
Within three months after reaching the Netherlands, 
he had taken eighteen hundred lives. Then growing 
weary of such insignificant work as sentencing indi- 
viduals, his Council of Blood with one fell swoop (Feb- 
ruary 16, 1568) sentenced to death the entire popula- 
tion — three millions of people ! Trees and scaffolds 
by the roadsides were everywhere hung with the dead. 
Alva boasted that in addition to those whose deaths 
he had caused in battle, siege, and massacres, he had 
executed eighteen thousand six hundred heretics. 
Philip, however, pronounced Holland " the country 
nearest to hell." No wonder he thought the climate 
there rather warm ; for in his vain attempt to crush the 
civil and religious liberty of the people, not only did 
he drain his treasury, but he buried around the walls 
of the Netherland cities three hundred thousand of his 
soldiers. Of all the religious parties in this struggle, 
the Baptists alone had clearly grasped the New Testa- 
ment principle of the soul's competency in religion ; 
and it was they, as Douglas Campbell rightly affirms, 
who exerted " the greatest influence on the indepen- 
dent sects of England and America." 

[33] 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



The first man on British soil to plead for complete 
religious liberty was Hendrik Terwoort, who, being 
persecuted for his Baptist views in Flanders, fled for 
protection to Elizabeth, head of the English Church, 
and for his misplaced confidence was roasted alive at 
Smithfield, dying, as Bishop Fuller tells us, " in great 
horror, with crying and roaring* " ; then this Protestant 
queen ordered all Baptists out of her realm on pain of 
imprisonment and confiscation of property. Bishop 
Spencer boasted that he would drive every Lollard 
from his diocese, or make them hop headless, or fry at 
the stake. Nor were English Presbyterians more toler- 
ant. " New presbyter was but old priest writ large." 
As an illustration of the Presbyterian idea, take this 
instance. A Catholic, named Morgan, unable to obtain 
priest's orders in England, went to Rome for them, and 
on his return was hanged. Knox expressed the opin- 
ion that persons guilty of popish practices should be 
killed as idolaters. By an act of the Scottish Parlia- 
ment in 1560, all who attended mass were condemned 
to banishment or death. The Edinburgh Convention, 
which framed the articles of Church Polity, proclaimed 
that the observance of days like Christmas and Epiph- 
any ought not to escape the punishment of the civil 
magistrate. In 1644 Featley, a Presbyterian contro- 
versialist, entreated the most noble lords that Milton 
might be cut off as " a pestilent Anabaptist." Even 
Baxter declared, " I hate unlimited liberty and tolera- 
tion of all, and think myself easily able to prove the 
wickedness of it." 

Declaiming against baptism, he averred that " apo- 
plexies, palsies, debility of the stomach, fevers, colics, 
and spasms " would be produced by it. Then having 
detailed that grim catalogue of Baptist woes, Baxter, 
author of " The Saint's Everlasting Rest," continued in 
this restful language : " All hepatic, splenetic, and pul- 

F 34 1 



FIDELITY TO OUR BAPTIST HERITAGE 

monic persons, and hypochondriacs will soon get 
enough of immersion. It is good for nothing but to 
dispatch out of the world men that are burdensome, 
and to ranken churchyards. If murder be a sin, then 
dipping over head in England is a sin; and if those 
who would make it men's religion to murder them- 
selves are not to be suffered in a commonwealth any 
more than highway murderers, then judge how these 
Anabaptists, that teach the necessity of such dipping, 
are to be suffered." 

Soul-liberty in England did not originate with Epis- 
copalians or Presbyterians, but with our Baptist fore- 
fathers. They, as John Locke declared, when Lord 
Chancellor King sought to crown him as the author of 
this blessing, were the first and only propounders of 
absolute liberty, just and true liberty, equal and im- 
partial liberty. It was from a little dingy Baptist 
meeting-house in London, where Thomas Helwys and 
his congregation worshiped (1611), that there flashed 
out first in England this sublime principle. The first 
official document published by a body of associated 
churches, advocating an untrammeled conscience, was 
the confession of Faith issued by seven English Bap- 
tist churches in 1644. Article 48 of that Confession 
was then deemed revolutionary and dangerous. It is 
now, as Professor Vedder tells us, a shining landmark, 
not only of Baptist history, but of the progress of en- 
lightened Christianity. It recognized king and Par- 
liament as supreme in all civil affairs, but affirmed 
that in matters of worship there is only one law-giver, 
even Christ. 

It was in America, however, that this Baptist doc- 
trine was destined to achieve its greatest glory. When 
the Puritans settled Massachusetts in 1628, they were 
determined to worship God according to their own 
conscience, and to prevent everybody else from wor- 

r 35 1 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



shiping him according to theirs. They organized 
themselves into Congregational churches, established 
those churches by law, limited political suffrage to 
membership in those churches, forbade all dissenting 
churches, and enforced these requirements and pro- 
hibitions by penalties of disfranchisement, fine, im- 
prisonment, scourging, and banishment. Roger Wil- 
liams was denounced as a man with a windmill in his 
head, a disturber of the peace, a disseminator of pesti- 
lential opinions, because he dared to teach that the 
civil magistrate's power extended only to the bodies 
and goods of men. For this teaching he was banished 
from the colony, though John Cotton heartlessly re- 
marked that it was not banishment but only enlarge- 
ment. For fourteen wintry weeks, without bread and 
without bed, Williams wandered through trackless 
forests, till he alighted upon a place called Providence, 
and there built " a shelter to persons distressed for 
conscience.*' He founded a State without a king, and 
organized a Church without a bishop; the corner-stone 
of the new community being " the principle of absolute 
religious liberty combined with perfect civil democ- 
racy." The charter provided that no person within 
the colony should at any time be molested, punished, 
disquieted, or called in question, for any difference of 
opinion in religious matters. And there for the first 
time since Christianity ascended the throne of the 
Caesars, we read in a code of laws, as Judge Story said, 
the declaration that conscience should be free, and 
that men should not be punished for worshiping God 
in the way they believe he requires. 

The story of William Witter, the old blind man, is 
well known. He lived at Lynn, but was a member of 
the Newport Church. In July, 1651, he was visited by 
his pastor, John Clarke, and two other Newport breth- 
ren, Obadiah Holmes and John Crandall. They 



[36 



FIDELITY TO OUR BAPTIST HERITAGE 

reached the old man's home on Saturday evening. 
Next morning the visitors were holding a religious 
service with Witter's family and four or five others 
who had come in unexpectedly. As Clarke was open- 
ing to them the Scriptures, two constables entered 
with a warrant for their arrest. Clarke, with his com- 
panions, was imprisoned in " the ale-house " ; then 
taken to Boston and brought before Governor Endi- 
cott for trial. Without accuser, witness, jury, law of 
God or man, they were condemned. The governor 
charged them with denying infant baptism, declared 
that they were worthy of death, and that he would 
have no such trash within his jurisdiction. He sen- 
tenced Crandall to pay a fine of five pounds, or be well 
whipped ; Clarke to pay a fine of twenty pounds, or be 
well whipped ; Holmes to pay a fine of thirty pounds, 
or be well whipped. Tender-hearted friends satisfied 
the claims of Crandall and Clarke, but Holmes felt 
that he " durst not accept such deliverance." He lan- 
guished in prison till September ; then for the atrocious 
crime of preaching the gospel and denying infant bap- 
tism, he was taken into one of Boston's public streets, 
stripped of his clothes, and handed over to the execu- 
tioner, who was told to " do his office." Thirty strokes 
with a three-corded whip were laid upon his bared 
and bleeding body, the man striking with all his 
strength — " yea," said Holmes, " spitting on his hands 
three times." So gashed and torn was his flesh that 
for many days he could take no rest save upon his 
knees and elbows, being unable to suffer any part of 
his body to touch the bed. And yet while being un- 
mercifully whipped, like Jesus on the cross and 
Stephen under the death-bearing stones, he prayed for 
his tormentors; and when the last lash had fallen, he 
cheerfully said to them, " You have struck me with 
roses"! That is the kind of stuff out of which our 

[37] 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



forefathers were made. We need a little more of the 
heroic in our present-day religion. 

A halo of glory will forever wreathe the name of 
Virginia Baptists; for they protested and petitioned, 
they struggled and suffered, till the principle of soul- 
liberty was grafted into our national constitution. 
Virginia was settled by Cavaliers, whose charter of 
1606 made the Episcopal faith the religion of the 
colony. Withdrawal from the Episcopal Church was 
accounted a crime equal to revolt against the govern- 
ment. The charter provided that non-conformists 
should be arrested and imprisoned till fully and thor- 
oughly reformed. The clergyman's salary was fixed 
at sixteen thousand pounds of tobacco. It was levied 
on the parish, and collected like other taxes. Absence 
one Sunday from an Episcopal service was punished 
with a fine of fifty pounds of tobacco; absence for a 
month, four thousand pounds ; refusal to have one's 
baby sprinkled, two thousand pounds. So that the 
support of Episcopacy in Virginia, as Doctor Carroll 
remarks, made " awful inroads on Baptist tobacco." 
Baptist ministers were fined, beaten, imprisoned, 
poisoned. Sometimes a snake or a hornet's nest was 
thrown into their meeting. Not infrequently the ordi- 
nance of baptism was rudely interrupted, the adminis- 
trator and the candidate being held beneath the water 
till nearly drowned. No wonder that Madison called 
such outrages " that diabolical and hell-conceived 
principle of persecution." No wonder that Patrick 
Henry rode horseback fifty miles to a crowded court- 
room, where he appeared unsolicited as the attorney 
for three Baptist preachers. He took from the prose- 
cutor the indictment, and reading that the prisoners 
were charged with no other crime than that of preach- 
ing, he waved the indictment three times round his 
head, exclaiming each time, "Great God ! Great God! 



[38 



FIDELITY TO OUR BAPTIST HERITAGE 

Great God ! " and thus shamed the prosecution out of 
court. 

But our sufferings were not fruitless. By the time 
of the Revolution, Baptists in Virginia were wielding 
a mighty influence. They were patriotic to the core ; 
but as the war-cloud darkened, they agreed to promote 
the common cause on condition that they be allowed 
to worship God in their own way, without interrup- 
tion; that they be permitted to maintain their own 
ministers and no others; that they be married or 
buried without paying the clergy of other denomina- 
tions. The first great triumph was scored when other 
than Episcopal clergymen were admitted to the army 
as chaplains. Then in May, 1776, the Bill of Rights 
was passed, declaring that all men are equally entitled 
to the free exercise of religion. In October of the 
same year the state salaries of the Episcopal clergy 
were suspended. In 1785 Jefferson's " Act to Estab- 
lish Religious Freedom " became the fundamental law 
of Virginia. And in 1802 the last step was taken in 
the sale of the clerical lands, it being held that they 
had been purchased by a public tax and so belonged 
to the state. With the sale of these glebes, Bishop 
Meade says, " the warfare begun by the Baptists seven 
and twenty years before was now finished. " 

In 1772 a general committee of Baptists was ap- 
pointed to secure for all the colonies what was being 
so nobly won in Virginia. When the first Continental 
Congress convened at Philadelphia in 1774, this com- 
mittee with Isaac Backus as leader presented a me- 
morial, pleading ^or " the inalienable rights of con- 
science to all." 'they were told by John Adams that 
so far as Massachusetts was concerned they might as 
well expect the planets to turn from their annual and 
diurnal course, as to expect the Bay Colony to change 
its ecclesiastical establishment. But that Baptist 

[39] 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



Committee believed in the perseverance of the saints. 
They persisted. They collected facts; they circulated 
petitions ; they memorialized Colonial Assemblies ; un- 
til the national Constitution was adopted in 1787. 
Article Six provided that no religious test should ever 
be required as a qualification to any office or public 
trust under the United States. But this did not satisfy 
these Baptists. They saw that it would not prevent 
the government from erecting a State Church. They 
consulted with Madison as to the wisest course of 
action ; and on his advice they wrote directly to Presi- 
dent Washington. In his reply he praised the Bap- 
tists as " the persevering promoters of our glorious 
revolution," and pledged himself to use all his influ- 
ence in establishing effectual barriers against the hor- 
rors of spiritual tyranny and every species of religious 
persecution. One month after this correspondence. 
Madison, with the approval of Washington and in the 
language proposed by a committee of Virginia Bap- 
tists, introduced in the House of Representatives the 
First Amendment : " Congress shall make no law re- 
specting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting 
the free exercise thereof " ; the most important writing 
since the canon of Scripture was closed and sealed 
with the stamp of Deity. On September 23, 1789, Con- 
gress adopted the amendment; and by December 15, 
1791, it had been ratified by all of the States, except 
Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Georgia. And so at 
last, after generations of suffering, the Baptist idea 
had become the American idea. At last, after cen- 
turies of bloodshed, the despised old Baptist doctrine 
of soul-liberty had become a part of our national law : 
and America in the widest sense was the land of the 
free as well as the home of the brave. Such is onr 
glorious heritage of soul-liberty, a heritage which we 
are bound to defend, and extend and bequeath. 



40 



FIDELITY TO OUR BAPTIST HERITAGE 

With our heritage of soul-liberty has come that of a 
spiritual church. Our fathers bequeathed to us the 
conviction that the church is a body of believers called 
out from the world, that the membership is a regener- 
ate membership, consisting of such only as have been 
renewed by God's Spirit and are by faith vitally joined 
to Christ. They could not, therefore, accept the West- 
minster Confession, which affirms that the church in- 
cludes all those throughout the world who profess the 
true religion, together with their children. Nor could 
they assent to the Book of Common Prayer, from 
which the minister, at the christening of an uncon- 
scious babe, reads, saying, " This child is regenerate 
and grafted into the body of Christ's church." Our 
fathers held that the reason for our denominational ex- 
istence is not baptism as a mode, but the church as a 
spiritual organism. They practised immersion not 
simply because Christ was buried beneath the yielding 
wave, but because immersion is " our Lord's appointed 
sign of his death and resurrection, and of the believer's 
entrance into communion therewith." They rejected 
infant baptism not simply because it has no scriptural 
warrant, but because it admits to the church such as 
do not know and cannot know aught of the new birth. 
They opposed sprinkling or pouring in the case of 
adults not simply because no such method was known 
in apostolic days, but because the ordinance when thus 
administered does not symbolize that dying and rising 
with Christ which is essential to admission into a New 
Testament church. 

A glance at history reveals the fact that when 
formalism was substituted for spirituality, and devo- 
tion to externals supplanted personal faith, the regen- 
erate church became a degenerate church, gross dark- 
ness covered the people, and the martyr-fires were 
kindled. The church in the world and the world in 

[41] 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



the church are two very different things. So long as 
the church was a separated church, it gave proof of 
its divine origin and supernatural power. But when 
the world was taken into the church's bosom, the 
church was not only shorn of strength but became a 
public scandal. Take an illustration from Virginia. 
Preachers there, we are told, wore black coats, babbled 
in the pulpits, roared in the taverns, and by their exac- 
tions and dissoluteness destroyed rather than fed the 
people. The clergy, Bishop Meade informs us, were 
sometimes a gambling, swearing, horse-racing, cock- 
fighting, and drunken set. One of them, a noted pugi- 
list, getting into trouble with his vestrymen, knocked 
them down severally, then dragged them out more or 
less collectively, and the next Sunday celebrated his 
victory by preaching from the words of Nehemiah, " I 
contended with them, and cursed them, and smote cer- 
tain of them, and plucked off their hair." 

In Massachusetts, where citizenship and church- 
membership were nearly identical terms, a number of 
ministers, with a view to extending the franchise, met 
at Boston in 1657 and adopted what is known as the 
Half-way Covenant. This covenant provided that all 
persons of sober life and correct sentiments might be- 
come members of the church without being examined 
as to a change of heart. Persons baptized in infancy 
were to be regarded as belonging to the church of their 
parents. Such persons, in turn, if not guilty of heresy 
or scandalous conduct, could have their children bap- 
tized. Thus the unregenerate were granted baptism, 
but were as yet denied communion. It was not long, 
however, before the bread and wine were declared to 
carry converting grace, and then all were admitted to 
the Lord's Supper. And so the sluice-gates were flung 
open, and worldliness, Avith its consequent dearth and 
deadness, poured in. Against this inrushing flood 

[42 1 



FIDELITY TO OUR BAPTIST HERITAGE 

Baptists stood almost alone, with here and there a 
mighty helper like Jonathan Edwards, who for his in- 
sistence on a spiritual church was driven from his pas- 
torate at Northampton. History calls loudly to us to 
be true to the Baptist idea — true to it, not simply be- 
cause it is an inherited idea, but because it is the New 
Testament idea ; true to it because God has honored 
and blessed us in proportion as we have cherished and 
practised it; true to it because while other churches 
advocating a mixed membership have become de- 
cadent, our growth has furnished conspicuous evidence 
of divine approval. 

The Advance, of Chicago, commenting on the decline 
of Congregational churches in some of the western 
States, several years ago said : 

It is significant that this has occurred at a time when it is 
easier than ever before to get into a Congregational church, 
excepting the period of the Half-way Covenant. In many of 
the churches the doors are as wide open as hinges and posts 
will admit. A Chicago gentleman of liberal proclivities was 
constrained to protest that his church could not go any fur- 
ther without removing the whole front end of the building. 
No teaching in the New Testament [the Advance declared] 
is clearer than this, that for spiritual work and spiritual re- 
sults there must be spiritual power. The churches, however, 
are more or less under the influence of an opposite kind of 
teaching. We have imbibed just enough of the evolution 
theory to turn our heads from the upward look of the apostles 
to the downward look of the naturalist. We do not openly 
admit it, except in radical cases, but unconsciously we act out 
the theory that the forces of religion are all in man. With 
this conviction comes indifference to prayer, and a feeling 
unfavorable to revivals. What the churches need is a return 
to the upward look. 

It is this upward look that has made the Baptist 
church so potent, and the Baptist heritage so precious. 
What memories throng us as we mention the church 
of our fathers? We think of Pentecost, the birthday 

[43] 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



of the church ; the army of martyrs who stand by the 
throne and gaze into the face that made glorious their 
own. We think of the romance and heroism of mod- 
ern missions ; of childhood days and the Sabbath chime 
of bells, when we joined the well-appareled crowd that 
went together to the house of God, where the gray 
saint just on the edge of heaven and the little child 
just taught to close the lash of its blue eye the while 
in prayer — knelt in attitude of worship ; then the hymn 
sincere in its old-fashioned melody, and then the 
tremulous accents of the preacher who lent Isaiah's 
fire to the truth of revelation. We think of father 
and mother and many loved ones. Part have crossed 
the flood, and part are crossing now. We loved them, 
and they taught us to love God. We followed them, 
and they taught us to follow Christ. We think of the 
barrenness and joylessness and hopelessness which 
might have been our curse had we not known the 
church. We think of the inspiration which the church 
has breathed into us, of the safeguards which the 
church has thrown round us, of the hope with which 
the church has anchored us to things within the veil. 
The church has been to us a Bethel, where in our 
stony griefs Ave have seen the angel-crowded ladder; 
a Peniel, where through the long watches of the night 
God has wrestled with us, withered the sinew that re- 
sisted him, and then, as Ave hung- on him pleadingly, 
shoAved us his face. The church has been to us a 
Patmos, Avhere being in the Spirit Ave haA T e looked 
right through heaA^en's gorgeous roof, and have caught 
A'isions of the land that is fairer than day. So we 
sing: 

I love thy church, O God, 
Her walls before thee stand, 

Dear as the apple of thine eye, 
And graven on thy hand. 



44 



FIDELITY TO OUR BAPTIST HERITAGE 

For her my tears shall fall, 

For her my prayers ascend; 
To her my cares and toils be given, 

Till toils and cares shall end. 

We may also be justly proud of our educational in- 
heritance — a goodly heritage of culture. Many im- 
agine that our forebears, like the conies, were a feeble 
folk, whose feebleness was equaled only by their igno- 
rance. But a study of beginnings and developments 
furnishes quite a different story. Among the earliest 
friends and promoters of the free public schools in 
America was a Baptist, Dr. John Clarke, of Rhode 
Island. It was a Baptist, Henry Dunster, who served 
as first president of Harvard, the oldest American col- 
lege. That he might put the struggling institution on 
a solid financial basis, he obtained large gifts of money 
and gave one hundred acres of land himself. With 
masterful hand he shaped Harvard's early life, till 
after fourteen years of remarkable service he was in- 
dicted by the grand jury for disturbing the ordinance 
of infant baptism, and was compelled to resign. It 
was a Baptist University, begun as "a seminary of 
polite literature," which under Francis Wayland em- 
phasized scientific training and early introduced the 
elective system, thereby helping' to blaze the way 
which other colleges now almost universally follow. 
It was Matthew Vassar, a Baptist, who founded here 
the first distinctively woman's college, " thoroughly 
Christian, frankly feminine." It is the Baptists of this 
country whose sixty-eight educational plants have 
reached the enormous money total of $80,000,000. To 
this total we are now planning to add $28,000,000 
more ; but we are not willing that a penny of it shall 
go to any institution that would pluck the crown of 
Deity from the brow of Jesus. 

At the great world-courts, it has long been held that 

r 45 1 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



education must be coextensive with sovereignty. 
Here, therefore, where all are sovereigns, education 
ought to be coextensive with the people — especially 
with Baptist people, since our principles encourage the 
freest investigation, and our mission demands the best 
equipment. The intellectual graces which adorned 
our fathers and mothers are urgent calls to further cul- 
ture in us — a practical culture, like that of Martin 
Brewer Anderson, who as an educator had a passion for 
practicalness ; whose education did not make him an 
impractical dreamer; who was preeminently a man of 
affairs ; who knew as much about poultry as about 
poetry ; who was as familiar with calluses on men's 
hands as with calluses on men's brains; whose advice 
was eagerly sought in matters ranging from the petti- 
est details of commonplace lives to the most compli- 
cated questions of public policy; who studied history 
and science and theology that he might be the better 
able to help his fellow men ; who appealed to scholars 
to bring themselves into contact with humanity at the 
point of need ; who criticized unsparingly literary re- 
cluses, that peep out from their loopholes of retreat, 
finding the pleasure of their life and the end of their 
being in the accumulation of mental wealth, which 
they never make available for any good purpose be- 
yond their own enjoyment. 

In his " Fragments of Science," Tyndall speaks of 
certain crystals in the mineral world, certain forms of 
fluor-spar, which have lain darkly in the earth for 
ages, but which nevertheless have a potency of light 
locked up within them. In their case the potential 
has never become actual, the light being held back by 
a molecular detent. When these crystals are warmed, 
the detent is lifted, and an outflow of light immedi- 
ately begins. This is the work of Baptist parents and 
teachers and preachers — to warm the living crystals in our 

[46] 



FIDELITY TO OUR BAPTIST HERITAGE 

homes and schools and churches ; to convert the potential 
into the actual; to lift the detent from the minds of 
our children and young people ; to cause these future 
workers and leaders to become conscious of light 
within themselves, and sources of light to others ; to 
teach them that our heads ought to be as full of light 
as our hearts are of devout heat ; that there need be no 
antagonism between a luminous intellect and a devo- 
tional spirit ; that knowledge ought to 

Grow from more to more, 
But more of reverence in us dwell ; 
That mind and soul, according well, 
May make one music as before, 
But vaster. 

As a final bequest, may I briefly mention our heri- 
tage of evangelism. One Sunday afternoon, in a little 
churchyard of Kettering, England, I stood with bowed 
head at the grave of Andrew Fuller, the man who held 
the ropes while Carey descended into the mines of 
India. A few minutes later I was standing at the old 
home of Mrs. Beeby Wallis, then occupied by Mr. 
Stockburn, president of the city magistrates. I 
knocked with the old-fashioned knocker, and was ad- 
mitted. Mrs. Stockburn, an aged lady, graciously 
ushered me into the famous back parlor, where I found 
not twelve men planning missions, but two young 
couples busily courting. As my funds were running 
low after a long trip to the Orient, I was strongly in- 
clined to suggest that if as a minister I could be of 
any service, I should be glad to render such service at 
half price. But other and more serious thoughts pos- 
sessed me. It was in that room that a few humble 
Baptists organized a movement which is now girdling 
the whole earth. I thought of October 2, 1792 — the 
birthday of the modern foreign missionary enterprise-; 
and of the world-issues that were wrapped up in that 

[47] 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



little meeting. I thought of Carey, ridiculed as a 
tinker and tub-preacher ; denounced as a fool and mad- 
man ; and yet he it was who revolutionized the agri- 
cultural social, and religious condition of a vast em- 
pire ; who put out the heathen fires that burned widows 
alive ; who started the first Sunday school in India, and 
the first school for native children in Hindustan ; who 
translated the New Testament into Bengali, the first 
version of modern times in any heathen tongue ; who 
by making and helping to make twenty-eight such 
versions, put the sacred Scriptures within reach of 
one-third of the human race ; who saw twenty-six gos- 
pel churches planted among the heathen ; and who, 
aided by Marshman and Ward, gave to missions out of 
his own earnings nearly half a million dollars, and 
dying poor said, " I might have had large possessions, 
but I have given my all." 

Time would fail me to tell of Judson, the first mod- 
ern herald to an absolutely heathen nation. When he 
set foot in Burma, there was not even the semblance 
of a civilized government, and he found that the tender 
mercies of the king- were cruel. We have punctuated 
with tears the pages of his life, as we have read of his 
awful sufferings while undergoing the remnant of 
Christ's woe. Seventeen months he was in chains. 
To his dying day he bore in his body the branding- 
marks of Jesus. When seized and hurried off to 
prison, his precious manuscript, which he had hidden 
in an old pillow, was thrown away as a worthless piece 
of cotton. But God preserved the pillow, and that 
manuscript now forms part of the first Burmese Bible. 

It was a Baptist, Joshua Marshman, who first trans- 
lated the Bible into the Chinese language. It was a 
Baptist, Francis Mason, who gave the Karens their 
first version. It was a Baptist, Nathan Brown, to 
whom Assam and Japan are alike indebted for their 

148] 



FIDELITY TO OUR BAPTIST HERITAGE 

complete translation. It was a Baptist, Lyman Jewett, 
who rendered a similar service to the Telugus. It was 
a Baptist, William Carey, who at Serampore, with a 
view to printing the New Testament in seven of the 
Indian languages, organized the first Bible society, 
anticipating by a few months the British and Foreign 
Bible Society, which itself was originated by a Baptist 
minister, Joseph Hughes. 

In the missionary conquest of America also, our 
forefathers w r ere among the pioneers. Take a single 
instance. Napoleon, while attending the Easter ser- 
vice at the Notre Dame Cathedral, suddenly deter- 
mined to sell our government the heart of the Ameri- 
can continent. Such an opportunity had never oc- 
curred to Jefferson. He was trying merely to secure 
at New Orleans such rights as would permit our free 
navigation of the Mississippi. Seeking a humble foot- 
hold in a city, he was surprised to find an empire for 
sale. The purchase was bitterly opposed by such men 
as Fisher Ames, who declared that by adding an im- 
measurable world, we should rush like a comet into 
infinite space. In our wild career, even if we did not 
jostle some other world out of its orbit, he w r as of the 
opinion that we should in any event quench the light 
of our own. Jefferson admitted that he stretched his 
presidential power till it cracked ; but he persisted, and 
closed one of the biggest real estate deals on record. 
In all that vast territory, larger by fifty-five thousand 
square miles than the original thirteen States, there 
was not a single Protestant church. The first mission- 
ary to enter the Louisiana Purchase was John Clark, a 
Baptist, who four years before the date of purchase 
paddled down the Mississippi in a little canoe and 
settled in St. Louis County ; and it was a Baptist, 
Thomas Musick, who organized the first church within 
the limits of that purchased empire, that old Baptist 

[49] 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



church being now the mother of forty thousand 
Protestant churches between the Mississippi and the 
Pacific. 

Possessed of such an inheritance, bequeathed to us 
by men and women now among the saints in light; 
commissioned by the Son of God, whose pierced hand 
is pointing us to every nation ; impelled by the world's 
need, two-thirds of the human race, after nineteen 
centuries, still unevangelized ; inspired by the example 
of Carey, whose blood-earnestness aroused a slumber- 
ing church, and made him obedient to our Lord's last 
and unrepealed command ; mellowed by the sufferings 
of Judson, who, conducting an embassy in chains, was 
reduced to beggary ; emboldened by the prayers of 
Jewett and Murdock and Barbour and Gordon, who 
" prayed mission stations into being- and missionaries 
into faith, prayed open the hearts of the rich and gold 
from the most distant lands " ; quickened by the zeal 
of Peck and Going and Bolles and Morgan, by the 
sacrifice of Chivers and the statesmanship of More- 
house, who, seeing the destitution of the home field, 
resolved to lend efficient aid with promptitude ; in- 
creased in goods and amply able to plant and equip 
and maintain new stations and schools and churches ; 
encouraged by our gospel triumphs in such fields as 
Porto Rico, where Delfino Muler, once a policeman, 
now an evangelist, testifies to the people, " You all 
know me, you know what I was ; you see what Christ 
has done for me " ; and in the Philippines, where Si 
Loy, our first Baptist deacon, mobbed and beaten, 
cries, " I can't strike back, for there is a great love in 
my heart " ; and in Africa, where Lutate, surnamed 
Barnabas, son of consolation, with shining face and 
melodious heart, tells Richards, " I do believe Jesus 
has taken away my sins ; I do feel that he has saved 
me, and I do feel so happy " ; and in Siam, where Thang 

[50] 



FIDELITY TO OUR BAPTIST HERITAGE 

Kan, the Garo, declines a lucrative government posi- 
tion, saying, " The official might bid me go north when 
the Lord Jesus was bidding me go south " ; and in 
Burma, where Henry Parke Cochrane tells us old 
U Po Hline, returning from a mission into the hill- 
country, sank with exhaustion again and again, yet 
each time he fell in the hot road, putting his hands 
together and praying, " Lord Jesus, I have been away 
doing thy work ; I have tried to be faithful ; give me 
strength to get home " ; and in India, where Krishnu 
Pal, black-skinned, white-souled, sings, 

O thou my soul, forget no more 
The Friend who all thy sorrows bore; 

while Keshub Chunder Sen exclaims, " None but 
Jesus, none but Jesus, none but Jesus is worthy to 
wear the diadem of India, and he shall have it " — pos- 
sessed of such an inheritance and encouraged by such 
conquests, 

Is this the time, O Baptist hosts, to sound 
Retreat? To arm with weapons cheap and blunt 
The men and women who have borne the brunt 
Of truth's fierce strife, and nobly hold their ground? 
Is this the time to halt, when all around 
Horizons lift, new destinies confront, 
Stern duties wait our people, never wont 
To play the laggard, when God's will was found? 
No, rather strengthen stakes, and lengthen cords. 
Enlarge your plans and gifts, O ye elect, 
And to the kingdom come for such a time. 
The earth with all its fulness is the Lord's. 
Great things attempt for him, great things expect, 
Whose love imperial is, whose power sublime. 



[51] 



IV 



THE DIVINE UNITY OF HOLY 
SCRIPTURE 



FRANK M. GOODCHILD, D. D. 

Pastor, Centra! Baptist Church. New York Cite 



THE DIVINE UNITY OF HOLY 
SCRIPTURE 



" I accept the Bible unmutilated." That was part of 
the statement I made thirty-two years ago to the 
council that examined me for ordination. Some who 
were present that afternoon did not like the statement. 
I am not sure that they would like it any better to- 
night. And yet I did not then, and I do not now, 
mean to make any insinuating suggestion. I simply 
meant to declare my absolute confidence in the one- 
ness of the Holy Scriptures, and to intimate that any 
subtraction from them would be a mutilation of them. 
It was not an ill-considered statement when I made 
it at first, though I was then but a youth, fresh from 
college and theological seminary. And I make it again 
tonight after many years have furnished me ample 
opportunities for careful and profound consideration — 
opportunities that have not passed unused. 

I am free to confess that during all these years I 
have felt no fear about the Book. I have enjoyed an 
unshakable conviction that it is God's Book; that he 
is able to take care of it ; and that he will take care of 
it. The people who have sat under my ministry know 
that I am not afraid of criticism of the Bible as such. 
The spirit of some critics, however, I have unsparingly 
condemned, and their dicta I have unhesitatingly re- 
pudiated. But criticism, so far as it means a careful, 
intelligent, honest, and scholarly study of the Scrip- 
tures, I have always welcomed. The Bible itself in- 
vites and common-sense approves it. The higher the 
claims a book makes for itself, and the more positive 



[55 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



its demands for our obedience, the more searching our 
scrutiny of it should be. I have no use for a super- 
stitious credulity that is determined to believe the 
Book, no matter what its contents. And I have no 
use, on the other hand, for the critic, who is determined 
not to believe the Book, no matter what its contents. 
The blind believer and the blind disbeliever are equally 
fools — both of them having cast reason to the winds. 
And I do not know but the man who professes to be- 
lieve in the Bible, but denounces those who undertake 
to examine its contents and manifests fear for the 
results of an examination, does the Bible more harm 
than the worst critic of the Word can do. It is another 
case of our needing to have the Lord take care of our 
friends, while we ourselves are quite able to take care 
of our enemies. He does not believe in the Bible who 
hugs it to his bosom and runs off with it into the 
darkness of superstition and traditionalism, fearing to 
bring it to the light, lest its statements be disproved. 
But he believes in the Bible who confidently seeks to 
have all light possible shed upon it ; who says, " The 
more light, the better," and who feels that the more 
we study the Bible, the more we shall see what an in- 
finite treasure we have in this Book of God. 

Now, while I have not shut my ears against any- 
thing that scholarship has had to say about the Bible, 
and while I have done all that a busy pastor could do 
to keep up with the work of Biblical students at home 
and abroad, yet I am obliged to say, and I say it with- 
out any sense of shame whatever, that I have today 
pretty much the same Bible that my godly father gave 
me so many years ago. There are just as many books 
in my Bible as there were in his. The parables are all 
there; the miracles are unshattered ; the history re- 
mains trustworthy ; the requirements are just as high ; 
the assurances are just as comforting; the promises 



[56 



THE DIVINE UNITY OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 

are just as reliable. I find myself preaching from the 
Book pretty much as he did. And I make the bold 
claim today, that, in spite of the supposedly superior 
light of the present, he was as expert a student of the 
Word as are we. Not with grammar and lexicon. He 
did not know much about variant readings, or inter- 
polations, or clay tablets, or the results of excavation. 
But he knew GOD as the men who walk the halls of 
Scripture knew him, and he knew how to make others 
acquainted with God. 

It was the boast of Tertullian, the author of that fine 
saying, " The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the 
church," that every mechanic among the Christians of 
his day knew God, and could make him known to 
others, and it delighted Tertullian to set that fact in 
contrast with the ignorance about God of Thales, the 
Greek philosopher, just as Tertullian's Master once 
said, " I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and 
earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise 
and prudent, and revealed them unto babes." Well, 
like those Christians of old, my father knew God and 
he believed his word implicitly. He did not know 
anything about the " Joseph-traditions " that modern 
scholars have guessed about, and when he told me the 
story of Joseph as I stood by his armchair one Sunday 
afternoon, he spoke as though it was all true. He did 
not know that Abraham was simply " a typical ex- 
ample of unworldly goodness elaborated by several 
schools of writers," as Cheyne says. He thought 
Abraham was a real man, faithful enough to be called 
" the friend of God," and when he told me the story of 
Abraham offering his son Isaac as a sacrifice, I could 
fairly see the angel swoop down and arrest the uplifted 
hand. Of course he did not know anything about the' 
story of the deluge being a myth which the Hebrews 
had borrowed from the Babylonians, and that it is 

r 57 1 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



" fundamentally a myth of Winter and the Sun-god." 
He thought it was a true record of God's wrath against 
a world that had given itself up to sin. And so one 
Sunday afternoon after a shower, when we took a walk 
together, he told me that there was once a terrific and 
prolonged downpour of rain, and that the waters pre- 
vailed over the earth and God's enemies were de- 
stroyed, and only through the handful of people that 
were saved in an ark did humanity have another 
chance. And I remember walking by his side that 
afternoon, full of awe, as one who had seen the judg- 
ments of the Lord. And when every day that dear 
father of mine used to read from that Book and then 
fall on his knees and talk with God, every one of his 
children felt that God was a reality and that he was in 
that room with us. You will understand then, breth- 
ren, that having spent my childhood under the tuition 
of a man who knew God face to face, I feel much more 
obligation to him for showing me the Bible as a living 
book than to these scholars who, taking what Astruc 
called his " Conjectures," have extended them and 
have acted as though they were certainties, and have 
merely shown how skilfully the wonderful Book can 
be dissected. 

There is another way of knowing the Bible than by a 
critical study of the text or a scrutiny of its origins, 
and that is by the illumination of the Spirit. The 
Bible knows how to bear witness to itself. The divine 
qualities of the Book are intrinsic and self-authenti- 
cated, and are not dependent on anybody or anything 
outside for certification. We do not believe the Bible 
because of anybody's attestation of it, but because of 
what it is in itself. It is not necessary for us to have 
the countersignature of Tubingen or Leipsic or Berlin 
or Oxford before we read the Divine Word. The 
Psalmist prayed* " Open THOU mine eyes, and I shall 



58] 



THE DIVINE UNITY OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 

behold wondrous things out of thy law," and to all 
appearances he did not pray in vain. The discouraged 
apostles after the great tragedy found in HIM who 
was dead but was now alive forevermore, the teacher 
they needed, and it is written, " Then opened HE their 
understandings that they might understand the Scrip- 
tures." Grammar and lexicon and historical acumen 
are no doubt valuable in their places, but men may 
know the Bible well without them. And, on the other 
hand, men may feel that they know the source of every 
paragraph in the Book, and the historical setting of 
every incident recorded in it, and the biography of 
every word that is used, and yet altogether miss the 
inner meaning of the Book. It is as true today as ever 
it was, that some things are " revealed to us through 
the Spirit." And I cannot escape the conviction that 
we get more from the Book if we approach it in sym- 
pathy and gratitude, than if we come with challenge 
and criticism. Scholars who are disposed to sneer at 
the average man's attitude toward the Bible, should 
remember that it was to very plain men that Jesus 
Christ said, " To you it is given to know the mysteries 
Of the kingdom of God, but to them it is not given." 

Let me speak of the oneness of the Bible in its 
effects, its structure, and the personality it presents. 

A man who had never seen a copy of the Bible, who 
should pick it up and look into it, would perceive at 
once that it is not like other books. It deals with won- 
derful things ; it speaks in a wonderful way ; there is a 
majesty in the words that makes them different from 
men's words. There is an insight into our nature that 
makes us tremble, a perception of our needs that fills 
us with hope, a power to satisfy those needs that goes 
beyond our hopes. And these qualities so pervade 
this Book that there are many people who declare that 
they can open the Book at random and read, and they 

[59] 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



find the inspiration and comfort and counsel they need. 
And it is an undeniable fact that every part of the 
Bible has been instrumental in awakening men to a 
sense of their need, in relieving their consciences of the 
burden of guilt, in enlightening their minds as to what 
they ought to do, and in making their lives beautiful 
with goodness. 

Archbishop Leighton has told us of a man who 
entered a church in Glasgow in his day, and heard the 
fifth chapter of Genesis read. You know that chapter 
is nothing but a list of the patriarchs, from Adam to 
Noah, and the number 0$ years they lived. Did I say 
nothing but a list of names? No, for in that chapter 
we have the most marvelous biography of a good man 
ever written : " Enoch walked with God ; and he was 
not; for God took him." But it was not that verse 
that impressed the listener that day. Archbishop 
Leighton tells us that the man left the church that day 
a converted man, and that the thing that converted 
him was the constant repetition of that phrase, " And 
he died." And Dr. Robert F. Horton, in alluding to 
this incident, says, " I believe you can show concern- 
ing every book, beginning at Genesis and going on to 
the very end, that each page has its trophies." And 
then he tells of a French skeptic who was converted 
by studying for philological purposes that same fifth 
chapter of Genesis. 

No one has a better chance to learn how the Book 
finds men out than the missionaries. And what testi- 
mony do the missionaries give us? Listen. Robert 
McAll says that one evening after giving an exposi- 
tion of Scripture in the city of Lyons, a man came to 
him with tears running down his cheeks, and said: 
" Never have I heard the truth so proclaimed. My 
conscience answers to it." That is the part that de- 
serves special notice. " My conscience answers to it." 



60 



THE DIVINE UNITY OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 

Once, when Dr. John Chamberlain had read to the 
natives of an East Indian city the first chapter of the 
epistle to the Romans, an intelligent Brahmin said to 
him : " Sir, that chapter was written by one of you 
missionaries about us Hindus; it describes us so ex- 
actly." But nobody disputes that that chapter was 
written by the apostle Paul eighteen hundred years 
before our missionaries went to India. 

At another time a learned Chinese man was em- 
ployed by some missionaries to translate the New 
Testament into Chinese. At first the work of trans- 
lating had no apparent effect upon the scholarly 
Chinese man. But, after some time he became quite 
agitated and said, " What a wonderful book this is." 
" Why so," said the missionary. " Because," said the 
Chinese man, " it tells me so exactly about myself. It 
knows all that is in me. The one who made this Book 
must be the one who made me." 

Dr. Robert F. Horton, from whom I have already 
quoted, seems to have made a specialty of preaching 
about the Bible, and he has made the startling declara- 
tion that, if any man will with unprejudiced mind read 
the Bible, it will surely bring him to God. He men- 
tions the Moslems. They are particularly hard to 
move from their religious faith. But he says the only 
way a Moslem is ever brought to the faith of Christ is 
when he is induced to read the Bible. If you can once 
get a Mohammedan to read the Bible, his conversion 
is certain. He can resist preaching. Of course he 
can resist denunciation. All of us can do that. But 
he cannot resist the Bible. Doctor Horton gives an 
incident of an English officer in Kashmir who was a 
devout Christian man. He was shooting in the moun- 
tains of Kashmir, accompanied by his native servant, 
who was a Mohammedan. This Englishman was no 
more ashamed to be seen praying than was his Mo- 

raii 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



hammedan servant. Every day he read his Bible and 
prayed in his tent. The servant observed it. He was 
not surprised at the praying, but was curious about the 
reading. He asked his master what he was reading. 
His master explained to him that it was the New 
Testament, and then he said, " If you would read it, I 
will get you a copy, but you must promise to read it." 
The Mohammedan said he would. The English officer 
procured him a New Testament in his own language. 
The native read it, and before long came, asking to be 
baptized, and he became himself a herald of the Cross, 
and no longer a follower of the Crescent. Then Doctor 
Horton said : " This book left to itself, without note or 
comment, without explanation or criticism, left in the 
hands of any reader who is not hardened or prejudiced 
and determined to resist it, brings a man to God. You 
want no better proof of what a book is than that." 

Doctor Dale, of Birmingham, has told us in one of 
his books of a conversation he had with a Japanese 
gentleman of high intelligence and culture, who had 
accepted Christianity. The good doctor asked him by 
what arguments he had been convinced that Chris- 
tianity was the true religion. He did not get the 
answer he expected. The thoughtful and learned man 
said that he had read no books of evidence, but he told 
how, in his heathen days, he had been a seeker after 
truth, and as he studied the cold system of Confucian- 
ism, he longed for the revelation of a personal God. At 
length, a New Testament came into his hands, and as 
he read it he seemed to be finding at every step just 
what he had been seeking. When he came to the 
thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, he was fairly 
dazzled with the glory and truth, and felt that it must 
be divine. And when he read the Gospel of John, he 
became sure that Jesus was the Son of God. This 
seems always to be the result of an unprejudiced. 



62 



THE DIVINE UNITY OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 

open-minded reading of the Bible. It carries convic- 
tion to all who so read it that it comes from God, just 
as we know the light about us comes to us from the 
sun. 

Now, when we find this Book so exactly adapted to 
all races of mankind — to the passionate Arabian, the 
sluggish Greenlander, the philosophic Greek, the low- 
born Hottentot and the high-bred Chinese, the studi- 
ous German and the polite Frenchman, the thoughtful 
Englishman, the enterprising American and the quick- 
witted Japanese — when we find it so well meeting the 
needs of all sorts and conditions of men, we must agree 
with the learned Chinese man that only the Creator of 
man could be the Creator of the Book. It is the one 
Book that appeals to all ages alike ; it is the one Book 
that appeals to all classes alike. Old and young, wise 
and simple, learned and ignorant, all delight in it. A 
Canadian preacher has told us that he went into his 
own home one day and his little daughter cried out: 
" Oh, papa, nurse has been reading me such a beautiful 
story. Don't stop us, please." He found that the 
nurse had been reading the story of Joseph from the 
Bible. Soon after he went over to the home of Sir 
William Dawson, geologist and naturalist, and he 
found him poring with equal interest over the same 
story. The same Book for young and old, the rich and 
poor, the learned and the ignorant, the sorrowing and 
the rejoicing. This is no merely human book. It 
brings tears to eyes that have been pitiless, and wipes 
away tears from eyes that are overflowing. It arouses 
the careless, and it speaks peace to the penitent'. There 
is no experience into which the human soul can come 
for which this Book has not an appropriate message. 
Surely we are right when we say that only He who 
knows man altogether could have made a Book that so 
exactly helps every man. 

[ 63 ] 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



From the singularly uniform results that come from 
reading the pages of this Book we can easily infer that 
in all its parts it must have a singularly uniform char- 
acter. And it has. It is a book marked by great di- 
versity, to be sure. If some one who has never seen 
it before should pick it up and examine it, he would 
find that it is not a single book, but a whole library. 
Here are sixty-six books bound together. Some of 
them cover only a page or two, and you could read 
them through in a few minutes. Others are fair-sized 
books, and would take you many hours to read aright. 
These books were written by as many as forty differ- 
ent authors. These authors lived in different lands. 
They wrote in several different languages. They rep- 
resent every social condition ; they were kings, 
courtiers, shepherds, farmers, fishermen, a physician, 
and a publican ; men of every degree of culture. Each 
author was evidently conscious of being free in the 
work he did : he developed his own theme, and used his 
own peculiar style of expression. These men wrote, 
some of them, as much as fifteen hundred years apart. 
There was no possibility of collusion. Indeed, they 
did not know that what they wrote was to be a part of 
a book, so thoroughly independent were they in their 
writing. And yet the result of their writings is not 
many books, but ONE Book — a Book so intensely one 
that we bind all its parts together and, following the 
example of John Chrysostom, we call it " The Book," 
the Bible. And really that is one of the most mar- 
velous things in the world. It is scarcely possible for 
any two men to report alike about anything they 
observe. It is as impossible to get men to think alike 
as it was for Charles the Fifth to get two clocks to tick 
alike in the famous experiment he made. Men differ 
about the simplest and most commonplace things. 
And vet we are confronted with this remarkable har- 



64 



THE DIVINE UNITY OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 

mony of the Bible. Its authors, as we have seen, were 
men of the most diverse type. The literary forms in 
which they expressed themselves were very different 
— poetry and prose ; the poetry, lyric and dramatic ; the 
prose, history, philosophy, and prophecy. And the 
subjects on which they wrote were also those on which 
nature and their own thinking would give them the 
least light. And yet, in the whole fifteen hundred 
years of its composition, the aim of the Book was one, 
its principles were unchanged, its view of God and 
man remained the same, and all over the world, among 
the most varied peoples, the effect of reading any part 
of the Bible is always the same. There is nothing in the 
least like such unity anywhere else. It is unnatural. 
Men could not produce such unity if they set out to do it. 
They could only approach it. It is a unity so profound 
that it demands some explanation. What explanation 
shall we give? An illustration will set it forth. 

You go some evening to a musicale. A symphony 
orchestra is before you. There are forty players, let 
us say. They are a varied lot of men ; of very diverse 
temperaments; they come from very different homes, 
and they approach their work in very different moods. 
The instruments they play are very different: some 
are of strings, some are reed instruments made of 
wood, some are of brass, some are of skins stretched 
tight. Each man has his own strain to play, and these 
strains sound very different when heard separately. 
But when played together, the harmony is ravishing. 
Now, how do you account for the unity of effect? 
You are in no dilemma about that. You say one mind 
governs them all. One man wrote the symphony, 
and each of the players gets his directions from the one 
composer. We cannot think of such unity in result, 
such harmonious volume of sound, without thinking 
of one master mind as its cause. 

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BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



My church built a new house of worship not long 
since. I often Avent to look at the men in their work 
of building. There was a small army of them. They 
were working on every part of the structure. They 
were very different men. The materials they worked 
with were very different. There was steel from Penn- 
sylvania. There was limestone from Indiana. There 
was other stone from quarries at Germantown. There 
was wood from the forests of the Northwest. There 
was such a diversity of materials as forbids mention 
of the kinds. Each man went about his work without 
paying much heed to most of the other men. And yet 
out of all that confusion of movement, the structure 
daily grew into finer perfection of beauty and useful- 
ness. And if, as I stood there, you had asked me for 
an explanation of such harmony of result, I should 
have pointed you to a man who now and then moved 
about among the workmen, stopping here and there to 
look, and then calling the attention of some of the men 
to a sheet that he had in his hands. That man was the 
superintending architect, and the sheet to which he 
referred was the detailed plan of the building, and that 
plan was the work of the one master mind that con- 
trolled everybody who did a stroke of work on that 
building. 

So, of the marvelous harmony of the Bible. There 
is no reasonable explanation of the impressively har- 
monious work done by these forty or more men, unless 
we accept the statement that many of them made 
plainly and repeatedly, that they were inspired and 
controlled by one master mind, the mind of God him- 
self. That is a sensible and a satisfactory explanation. 

And the unity of the Bible is all the more remark- 
able when you remember that its teachings were often 
at variance with the notions that prevailed among the 
people with whom some of the authors lived. Men 

[66] 



THE DIVINE UNITY OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 

are usually profoundly affected by the ideas of their 
time. Environment is counted mightier than heredity 
today. Tennyson said, " I am a part of all I have 
met." Ordinarily that is true of men. At the recent 
commencement of Crozer Seminary, Prof. B. C. Tay- 
lor, in retiring from the place as a teacher, which he 
has so honorably filled for more than forty years, said 
that he wished he could analyze himself and see just 
where each part of him came from. Often we can do 
something of that sort. We say of one trait, " That 
came from my grandfather." Of another trait we say, 
" My father is responsible for that." And we explain 
another by saying, " I had a friend, and I learned that 
of him." And no doubt the Biblical writers betrayed 
many of their life relations by the ideas they express 
and the way they express them. Yet in the great 
thing for which God was using them, to reveal to men 
his own character; his abhorrence of sin ; his grief over 
their fall, and the method by which they must be re- 
deemed — in that one great thing the Bible writers are 
held absolutely true, and they always found them- 
selves in instant revolt against the things that would 
in any way corrupt their thought. 

Some have impressed it upon us that Moses learned 
much from the Egyptians, and that what the Jews 
have given us, they got from Babylonia, and Egypt, 
and Assyria. Stephen does indeed tell us that Moses 
was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. But 
one of the main things Moses learned from the Egyp- 
tians was not to do as they did. No doubt in Egypt 
he was in the midst of the greatest civilization of his 
time, yet through what God had taught him, he found 
himself in revolt against it. Turn to the book of 
Genesis that carries the story of the race back to its 
beginning, and you will find there a view of things that 
is a flat contradiction of the notions that prevailed 

[67] 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



among the Egyptians and among the other nations 
that were neighbors to the Jews. Moses shows God 
creating the sun and moon and stars. Now you know 
that the sun and moon and stars were the gods of the 
nations round about the Jews. But, in Moses' view, 
they were simply the creatures of God's hand. The 
more you read that story and reflect upon it, the more 
marvelous it will seem to you. All through that first 
chapter of Genesis, Moses is demolishing the gods of 
the heathen. With almost every stroke of his pen a 
god goes. And, if you are familiar with the isms of to- 
day, and the prevailing false philosophies, you will find 
that that chapter demolishes them with equal effec- 
tiveness. And by the time any reader gets to the end 
of that chapter, instead of worshiping any creature, he 
finds himself bowing before the Creator of heaven and 
earth and all that in them is. 

Turn to Leviticus. Many do not like the atmos- 
phere of the book. It is full of blood. There are 
several good reasons for that, which it would be aside 
from my purpose tonight even to allude to. The book 
is so distasteful to some men who have no insight that 
they have called the priest of God in it a butcher, and 
the Lord's altars have been sneered at as shambles. 
But think of what Moses is doing in that book. When 
he got his unorganized mass of people out into the 
wilderness, he had to teach them. How should he do 
it ? Remember that they had come from a land where 
the bull was a god. The Egyptians worshiped cattle. 
The one time when the Israelites broke away from 
Moses they set up a calf as their god, showing that 
they had been profoundly influenced by their Egyptian 
life. But when Moses, the servant of the Lord, ar- 
ranged his sacrifices, in what did those sacrifices con- 
sist? They were cattle — the gods of paganism. Every 
morning and evening in the worship of Jehovah the 



[68] 



THE DIVINE UNITY OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 

blood of an Egyptian god was poured out, and the 
flesh of an Egyptian god burned upon the altar. You 
see the point of it, surely. All the gods of the heathen 
are offered in sacrifice to Him who alone is God. And 
so in books that men have spoken slightingly of we 
find exalted testimony borne to the same great truths 
that are set forth in the other books of the Bible. And 
what I want to know is, where Moses got those ideas 
that are so different from the prevailing notions of 
his day and so in harmony with those of the other 
writers of the sacred Book. 

And we have testimony from the Lord Jesus himself 
as to the unity of the Book. He says that the books 
are one in pointing to him. One great personality / ' 
dominates the Bible. Does it sound a bit old-fashioned 
to say that each book of the Old Testament has Christ 
as its object and center? And yet our Lord himself 
says that. I know that there are many who do not 
believe it — and they are men who think they under- 
stand the Scriptures, too. But do not be troubled. 
They are no new species. In the Saviour's own time 
there were two men who thought they knew the Scrip- 
tures, but they could not see Christ in them. And the 
Lord rebuked them for their blindness, and said, " O 
fools and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets 
have spoken." " And beginning at Moses and all the 
prophets he expounded unto them the things concern- 
ing himself." They had a Bible reading, conducted by 
the Lord himself, and his subject was " Christ in the 
Old Testament." I should like to have been with 
them then. On another occasion he said of the Scrip- 
tures, " They are they which testify of me" And on 
another occasion still he said, " All things must be ful- 
filled which are written in the law, and in the prophets, 
and in the Psalms concerning me." That covers all 
the divisions of the Old Book. It is a unit in its mes- 

[69] 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



sage concerning Christ. We can hear his lips saying, 
" In the volume of the Book it is written of me" It is. 
He himself hath said it. If we are not able to see it, 
we should mourn over our blindness, and ask him to 
open our understanding. And he will do that. And 
our hearts will burn within us while he talks with us 
by the way, and opens unto us the Scriptures. 

That the purpose of the New Testament is to pre- 
sent Christ to us, we do not need to have demonstrated 
to us. The purpose of the whole book John gives to 
us as he concludes his Gospel : " These things are writ- 
ten, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the 
Son of God; and that believing, ye might have life 
through his name." 

I have but begun to speak. There are scores of 
signs of the Book's mysterious unity to which I may 
not even allude. No matter how these books came to- 
gether, they are one book. Whatever the principle of 
selection was, the result is such a volume that you 
cannot add to it profitably, and you cannot subtract 
from it without hurt. Men have tried to cast out cer- 
tain books. But these books are there yet in the Book. 
Sit down and read them, and you will find they deserve 
to be there. To take them away would be like sever- 
ing a limb from the body, or putting out an eye. It is 
a marvelous Book — one in its purpose, one in its struc- 
ture, one in its saving effect on those who read it. 
Back of its historians, back of its prophets, back of its 
poets, back of its apostles, back of its seers who gave 
us their uplifting apocalyptic visions, there is one 
speaker, and that is the living God. The authors of 
the Book claimed to be the mouthpieces of the 
Almighty. Their work has proved itself to be God's 
Word. Even the Lord Jesus places himself alongside 
the prophets who spoke before him, and the apostles 
who spoke after him. He says — you remember — " The 

[70 1 



THE DIVINE UNITY OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 

words that I speak unto you, I speak not of myself, 
but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the 
works." And again in his high-priestly prayer, he 
says : " I have given unto them the words which thou 
gavest me; and they have received them." He never 
discriminated between the words*" he spoke and the 
words of the writers of these books. 

It is a wonderful book ! There is no other like it. Men 
have studied it microscopically. They have pulled it 
to pieces. They have tried to destroy it. But it has 
gone on ministering to the spiritual life of the cen- 
turies. It has shown a power to comfort and console, 
to strengthen and inspire men, to redeem men from 
sin, and to develop in them Christlike qualities, that 
sets it quite apart from the books that men have writ- 
ten. Wonderful Book! Its author is God, its subject 
is Christ, its object is the salvation of men, its end is 
eternity, its name is the Bible. Wonderful Book! Do 
you read it ? Will you read it henceforth as never be- 
fore? It will make you wise above your fellow men, 
wise unto salvation. Wonderful Book! No wonder 
men cling to it as worth more than life itself. 

Let all the plans that men devise 

Assault that book with treacherous art; 

I'll call them vanity and lies, 

And bind that Bible to my heart. 



711 



THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE 
ORDINANCES 



By EMORY W. HUNT, D. D., LL. D. 

President of Bucknell University 






THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE 
ORDINANCES 

I need not enumerate them. In this company I need 
spend no time on the reasons why we do not include 
among the ordinances ordination, marriage, feet-wash- 
ing, and the laying-on of hands. It is perfectly clear 
that from the earliest days the entrance upon the 
Christian life was marked by the ordinance of baptism. 
From the very first days also the meeting together of 
Christians was marked by a simple memorial meal 
taken in a solemn hush which vividly recalled the 
evening of the Last Supper. Of course these acts 
were intended to be significant, and of course their sig- 
nificance is the important thing about them. A word 
is not merely letters and syllables. It is content and 
meaning. The important question about it is not its 
spelling, but What does it say ? It was expected that 
when the families of Israel were gathered together in 
the land of promise to observe the Passover for an 
" ordinance to thee and thy sons forever," the children 
would say, " What mean ye by this service ? " and it is 
recorded that it should be regarded as quite as impor- 
tant to explain its meaning as to continue the obser- 
vance. When, with reference to baptism and the Lord's 
Supper, we ask, " What mean ye by this service ? " we 
are fortunately not left to speculation. We ought not 
to be surprised to find that the most vital things of the 
Christian message are enshrined in these forms. There 
is very little theory which is directly expressed by 
them, but very much of fact. 

In Romans 6 Paul writes as if the significance of 
baptism had so often been explained that his readers 

[75] 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



might be expected to understand it and to draw the 
obvious conclusions. Puncturing the Antinomian ar- 
guments by which apparently some of them had hoped 
to save their favorite sins, he says : " How shall we 
that are dead to sin live any longer therein? Know 
ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus 
Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we 
are buried with him by baptism into death, that like 
as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the 
Father, even so we also should walk in newness of 
life." Jesus Christ was dead and buried, and rose 
again, and in this significant ordinance of burial and 
resurrection I declare that I deserved to die, that he 
died for me, that I accept his death for me and declare 
it my own. Whoever takes the death and the new 
life out of the Christian experience robs it of its unique 
value. "Whoever interprets this as involving merely a 
theory and not requiring a life of positive holiness and 
actual service, is sadly degrading it. Paul pleads that 
we make good on the proposition and show that we 
are free from the dominance of sin by the exhibition of 
a new life. 

What baptism says is more important than how it says 
it. Here indeed is the chief mischief of sprinkling and 
any of the substitutes for baptism. Those who urge a 
more convenient baptism plead that " any application 
of water signifies cleansing." That might do for the 
Jewish ablution. Perhaps it is conceivable that that 
might have served for John's baptism and the inter- 
pretation of the message to repent. It might easily 
serve to indicate a purpose to reform, to change the 
outward manner of life. 

But herein consists the unique addition which Jesus 
made to the Old Testament. His purpose was not the 
polishing up of the old life, but giving a new one. The 
keyword of the Old Testament is righteousness, 






THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE ORDINANCES 

purity. The key-word of the New Testament is life ; 
" I am come that they might have life, and have it 
abundantly." And as in all nature, that life springs 
out of death. Christ died for me. Perhaps there is a 
time when our tongues, schooled in the prosaic habit 
of the West, striving to conform to the standard of an 
earthly tribunal of justice,, may have stammered at the 
word vicarious. These last fearful years have served 
to accustom our thought to it. So much of life is 
shown to be vicarious that we have learned it is the 
regular order. With even less hesitation than in other 
days, without shame, because of the necessities of my 
case, I say, " Christ died for me." My baptism says, 
" I died, and the life I now live in the flesh, I live by 
the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave 
himself for me." 

Far more than ritual is the significance of the death 
with Christ and the reality of the life in him. No sub- 
stitute for Christian baptism declares these basic facts. 
The serious objection to any substitute is that it 
obscures them. We need the emphasis of this truth 
with every new Christian life. 

The words in which the Last Supper was explained 
place solemn emphasis on the same fact : " This is my 
body, given for you. This cup is the new covenant 
in my blood, which is shed for many, for the remission 
of sins. This do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remem- 
brance of me ; for as oft as ye eat this bread and drink 
this cup, ye do show the Lord's death, till he come." 
We are assured that the purpose of this ordinance is 
defeated when it is partaken of, not by one lacking 
some outward condition of eligibility, but by one with- 
out the inner discernment which enables him to per- 
ceive the Lord's body. No formal participation in 
either ordinance is of value if it does not tell the truth 
about our personal relation to him. No acceptance of 

[77] 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



any doctrinal statement about him can take the place 
of a personal experience of him. We are always 
brought back to him. " Christ is all." " Christ liveth 
in me." " Christ in you, the hope of glory." Xo 
theories about him, right or wrong, determine our 
standing in him. We should do our poor best to have 
them right, but blessed be his Name, my imperfect 
thinking does not wholly exclude him. And indeed, 
we have known some who had great confidence that 
their ideas were correct, who made gruesome repre- 
sentations of his spirit. We cannot too often be 
brought back into his personal presence and face to 
face with him. 

From henceforth let there be but one only Baptist 
fundamental. Let all inferences from it take their 
second place. " Other foundation can no man lay 
than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." 

I am proud to claim fellowship with any man who is 
on that foundation, even though " his mind does not 
go along with mine " all the way. I am sorry when 
any brother draws away from me merely because I do 
not draw all of his inferences from that foundation. 
But I can only " remember Jesus Christ " and try to 
follow him as he went about doing good to the sick 
and sorrowing, the hungry and discouraged. I have a 
deep conviction that the Bible is inspired, but that 
conviction does not include the inspiration of its inter- 
preters, not even in the twentieth century. I cannot 
give my assent to the modern version of the parable of 
the Good Samaritan, which would suggest that, if we 
are on our way down to Jericho, and see beside the 
road a suffering pilgrim who has fallen into misfortune 
by the way, the proper and orthodox procedure for us 
is neither to pass by on the other side nor to administer 
oil and wine, but to take our seat on the curbstone 
across the street and figure out a time-table of the 



78 



THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE ORDINANCES 

coming of the Lord. The next step is to conclude 
that our time-table is inspired, and finally to require 
that all the brotherhood accept it on pain of demotion. 

Can we not carry in our minds two simultaneous 
ideas : first, the salvation by grace of the individual 
soul ; then, the New Testament teaching as to how the 
saved disciple is to operate, on the Jericho road and 
on the journey of life? It is not a superfluous or less 
spiritual work to give due interpretation and emphasis 
to the duties and obligations of the new life. We 
cannot afford to forget that He who came to save the 
souls of men left us one only outward and visible test 
by which our attitude toward him is finally to be 
judged, namely, this, our interest in the hungry and 
thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, and the 
prisoner. 

I cannot preach Christ and ignore in my program 
the work which he was accustomed to do. I cannot 
discern his body, and neglect the work his body did. 
He was apparently less concerned about what we call 
him than about what we do with his orders. Let no 
other thought, however true, usurp the place of primacy 
which belongs to him alone. 

Baptists do not place too much emphasis upon the 
ordinances, but when that emphasis is only on their 
form, obscuring their significance, it is sadly mis- 
placed. 



79 



VI 



NORTHERN BAPTISTS AND THE 
DEITY OF CHRIST 



JOHN MARVIN DEAN, D. D. 

Director of the Dean Campaigns of Evaagelism and Bible Study 



NORTHERN BAPTISTS AND THE 
DEITY OF CHRIST 



Northern Baptists are Trinitarians. They worship 
Jesus Christ. He is their sovereign God. " The Word 
was God." They do not believe merely in the Lordship 
of Christ, but with Thomas they cry, " My Lord and my 
God!" They do not have mental reservations concern- 
ing Christ's deity. They would be false to the best that 
their minds and hearts teach them, false to the Sacred 
Scriptures, false to the testimony of the centuries, and 
false to human experience in the spiritual laboratory 
of prayer if they did not worship the Lord Jesus 
Christ. To the Jew Christ may be an impostor; to 
the Unitarian he may be a moral example; to the 
Catholic he may be a remote God, to be approached 
only through the mediation of Mary and the saints; 
but to the Baptist he is the Creator-Redeemer, to 
whom the soul of man moves inevitably and directly, 
and before whom it rightly bows in humble adoration 
and solemn worship. Baptists give a glad assent to 
the words of Lyman Abbott when he cries, " I have 
no thought of God that goes beyond Jesus of Naz- 
areth." Baptists claim that no sin compares with the 
rejection of Christ as God and Saviour. The Baptist's 
message to the world is, " Turn from sin and self-suf- 
ficiency and fall at the Sovereign Saviour's feet." The 
Baptists feel that he is blind indeed who has not seen 
the glory of Christ's deity. Baptists do not deify 
Christ, for one cannot " godify " God. They only, 
with very great reverence and godly fear and with un- 
utterable tenderness, recognize and acclaim the eternal 
fact of the Triune God, and call upon rebellious men to 

[.'83 ] 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



join with angels and with saints and with the in- 
numerable witnesses of the vast creation in unitedly 
adoring the Christ of God. If the Baptist hymn-book 
were reduced to a single selection that selection would 
be: 

All hail the power of Jesus' name! 

Let angels prostrate fall; 
Bring forth the royal diadem, 
And crown him Lord of all. 

Let every kindred, every tribe, 

On this terrestrial ball, 
To him all majesty ascribe, 

And crown him Lord of all. 

Northern Baptists believe that the twelve apostles 
were the first Baptists. In substance and essence their 
teaching is our teaching. We stand willing to correct 
our doctrines and amend our conduct by their stand- 
ards. If they were living on the earth today we would 
hasten to join ourselves to them in fellowship and co- 
operation. They taught unequivocally the deity of 
Christ. In particular they taught his preexistence. 
His life, they declared, did not begin at Bethlehem : 
the Son of Mary was also the Eternal Son of the 
Father. Language was exhausted to describe his 
prerogatives. He was " before times eternal." He was 
" in the form of God, yet considered not his being on an 
equality with God a thing to be retained," but for our 
sakes descended to the Cross. "In the beginning was 
the Word." " The Word was Godr " The Word be- 
came flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, 
the glory as of the only Begotten of the Father." " That 
which was from the beginning our hands handled, and we 
declare unto you." " Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast 
laid the foundation of the earth." " A Lamb slain before 
the foundation of the world." " Jesus Christ, the same 
yesterday, today, yea, and forever! " The significance of 



[84 



THE DEITY OF CHRIST 



these statements is far greater than we are apt to think. 
We have been Trinitarians so long that we forget these 
utterances fell from the lips of men who had been the 
most intense of Unitarians. When pious Israelites, born 
and matured in the most radical of monotheistic schools, 
teach the preexistence and eternal nature of an earthly 
human associate, their words should not only have the 
value of gold but the weight of gold. 

Why did the apostles teach the preexistence of Christ ? 
The facts compelled them to. There was the fragrance 
of another world about Jesus Christ. They lived with 
him for three years, and they rightly concluded that such 
living and thinking evidently had their source in another 
world, differently conditioned and conducted from this 
world, a realm where values and standards were wholly 
unlike their own. He impressed them equally as a 
Brother and as f a Foreigner. His whole life persisted in 
running counter to the grain of the world to which they 
were accustomed. His deeds had the motives of heaven : 
his speech had the accent of heaven : his philosophy as- 
sumed the authority of heaven. He utterly refused to 
accept the stamp of the commercial, social, ecclesiastical, 
or scholastic world of the time. He manifestly brought 
with him his credentials from a ranking, heavenly juris- 
diction. 

The profound allusions of the Son of God deeply im- 
pressed them. Sometimes casually, sometimes with sol- 
emn emphasis, he dropped sentences that amazed and 
staggered them : " I came from the Father; I go to the 
Father." "The_glory I had with the Father before the 
world* was." "In heaven they neither marry, nor are 
given in marriage, but are as the angels of God." " I am 
the bread that cometh down from heaven." "Before 
Abraham was, Ijmi." These and numerous other utter- 
ances spoken with the vast miracle of his life to enforce 
them, broke down their preconceived ideas of him, 



[85 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



pushed out the partitions of their minds, and led them on 
to final convictions. They discovered that he who lived 
as though under the rules of heaven and not of earth, 
could speak intimately of that condition and realm from 
whence he came. 

The apostles did not fail, either, to note with more than 
fascinated interest the recognition accorded him by angels 
and evil spirits. In these they believed. But they were 
not prepared to see them so subservient to Christ. As 
the followers of the Nazarene went on from experience 
to experience, the angelic evidence accumulated. There 
were angels to herald him. At his cradle the sky glowed 
with them. At his temptation they ministered unto him. 
They attended him as the birds of the field were wont to 
flutter about the head of the holy Saint Francis. They 
w r ere at his tomb and at his ascension. Twelve legions of 
them stood, full-panoplied and ready, in the shadows of 
the Garden of Gethsemane. And there was not only the 
bright testimony of the angels; there was the dark en- 
dorsement of frightened evil spirits. These knew him. 
There was recognition. They had seen him before Man- 
saw her Babe at Bethlehem. " What have we to do with 
thee, Jesus, thou Son of the Most High God? We know 
the-e, who thou art, thou Holy One. Hast thou come to 
torment us before the time?" Thus beings bright and 
fair and spirits dark and sinister alike acknowledged their 
Master in realms other than human and earthly, and the 
amazed disciples took notes, pondered, and went steadily 
on toward the ultimate truth of his person. 

But more weighty than these considerations in the 
minds of the apostles was the fact of his dcathiessness. 
To their astonishment he did not die. His body died, but 
he survived it and revived it. transformed it and appeared 
in it openly and repeatedly for forty days before finally 
leaving his Church in the Ascension. It was easy to dis- 
cover the preexistence of Christ by the illumination of 

[86 1 



THE DEITY OF CHRIST 



his post-ascension life. Standing in the glow of the 
resurrection, they saw with startling clearness the eternal 
nature of their Master. 

Long prior to the resurrection they had accumulated 
part of the materials from which the Christian doctrine 
of the Deity of Christ was to be erected. It was material 
largely having to do with the astounding moral miracle of 
his sinlessness, as well as with the considerations already 
advanced as operative in their minds. As we, even in 
our day, read such an interpretation of the person of the 
Nazarene as Bushnell gives in his " Character of Jesus," 
or such an argument from the human Nazarene to the 
Divine Logos as Carnegie Simpson follows in " The Fact 
of Christ," or the conscientious analysis of the qualities 
of the Son of Man that Speer attempts in " The Man 
Christ Jesus," we find ourselves partially able to get the 
effect that the Life of Lives thus had upon the apostolic 
mind. But the apostolic mind owed no slight accelera- 
tion to the frequent glimpses that, even before Pentecost, 
his followers had obtained of his omniscience, his om- 
nipotence, and omnipresence. The resurrection and the 
early days of the apostolic history completed the evi- 
dence and thus gave final form to their definition of 
Christ. 

They found him possessed of more than human wis- 
dom. Not alone the high and unique order of wisdom 
exemplified in the Sermon on the Mount, but the dramatic 
foretelling of events as, for instance, his own violent 
death, its manner, his resurrection, the destruction of 
Jerusalem and the victory of his Word. The full evi- 
dence of the omniscience of Christ could not be known 
to them nor even the full value of the evidence they 
themselves presented. It has, for instance, taken long 
centuries to appreciate the true altitude of the Sermon on 
the Mount. As we travel away from it in time, it rises 
higher and increasingly dominates the moral and intel- 



[87] 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



lectual landscape. The apostles were hidden in the foot- 
hills of this mighty peak, too near perhaps to realize the 
intellectual grandeur of his utterances or to appreciate 
the vast perspectives of his far-seeing mind. They were 
perfect reporters. But it has taken the ages to adequately 
interpret and assay his wisdom, and that work is not yet 
fittingly accomplished. But they found him unhesitat- 
ingly to be All-wise. He was to them omniscient. Of 
all men then living on the earth they had perhaps the 
greatest depth of soul. Under the shadow of the Cross 
they tested him with their yearning, eager questions, and 
even when the shadows were darkest, and the light of 
the resurrection had not been vouchsafed to them, they 
clustered about him in the upper room and passionately 
declared : " Now know we that thou knowest all things, 
and needest not that any man should ask thee: by this we 
believe that thou earnest forth from God/' There was 
no need of asking him more soul-questions. He had 
answered them all. They had found their point of rest 
in the wisdom of Christ. 

He was found also to be omnipotent. It was their high 
privilege to turn page after page in the book of his 
strength. They assisted him at his clinics where he re- 
versed the processes of disintegration and decay and 
shortened the long, patient healing processes of nature 
into the flash of a single second. He drove before him 
the fevers, cancers, and leprosies of men. He called 
men back from the portals of Hades. He reached the 
long arm of his healing across the nineteen miles of space 
from Cana to Capernaum. He suspended the law of 
gravitation and made the unstable waters his sufficient 
pavement. He breathed upon " a great storm " and 
smoothed it into " a great calm." He who had not a 
place to lay his head accepted the obligation of five thou- 
sand guests in a desert place and sent them away well 
satisfied. He transmitted his healing powers to others. 



[88] 



THE DEITY OF CHRIST 



He made health contagious. Nature was made for him 
and made way before him. The very universe seemed 
to salute him. Death threw its shadow over him and 
paid the penalty of its affront by losing forever, from 
that time forth, its power to throw a shadow into any 
soul that trusted in him. 

They also discovered him to be omnipresent. This 
must have been to them a supreme discovery. It is true 
that he had said, " Lo, I am with you alway." It is also 
true that he had said, " Where two or three are gathered 
together in my name, there am I in the midst." But they 
may have taken these words figuratively. They were 
soon, however, to experience their blessedly literal fulfil- 
ment. Hardly had the Church begun its work, than the 
good news began to come in that Christ was everywhere! 
The apostles and disciples compared notes. On the very 
day that Christ showed himself near Damascus to Paul, 
it was found that he could show himself to the Twelve in 
Jerusalem and to Philip in Samaria. It is difficult for us 
to imagine the splendor of that great revelation — the tri- 
umphant truth that the Risen Christ was with every one 
of his disciples everywhere they might go in his name. 
When this was realized the Church became irresistible. 
It is true that imprisonment and death threatened them 
in every place, but Christ also waited to welcome them 
in every city and town. No committee met without him, 
no church worshiped without his presence, no apostle 
wended his way through a desert place unaccompanied 
by his Lord, and no lone martyr endured the final bite of 
the Empire's jealous hate without the mysterious recom- 
pense of a Saviour's dying grace. His multiplied leader- 
ship was in the very air. 

Lo. on the darkness brake a wandering ray — 
A vision flashed along the Appian Way, 
Divinely in the pagan night it shone, 
A mournful Face, a Figure hurrying on. 



89 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



"Lord, whither farest?" Peter wondering cried; 
" To Rome," said Christ, " to be recrucified." 
Into the night the vision ebbed like breath, 
And Peter turned, and rushed on Rome and death! 

He was in Jerusalem, but also in Antioch; he was in 
Ephesus, but also in Rome; he was in Alexandria, but 
also in Illyria. Jesus Christ was discovered to be omni- 
present. 

It was, then, experiences such as these that gave to the 
world its first Baptists, men committed profoundly to the 
only possible interpretation of his being; namely, that he 
was the incarnate God himself. In the cathedral at 
Copenhagen stands the benignant figure of Thorwaldsen's 
Christ. It has become a Mecca for the lovers of beauty 
and for the devout in heart. A traveler came from 
afar to see the famed production. He looked long 
and critically, standing first near and then back, then 
to the right and again to the left. He finally turned 
away disappointed. But a little child standing beside 
him and eagerly watching his face said : " Oh, sir, 
you cannot see Him that way. You must get very., 
close, and fall on your knees and look up!" It was 
this that the manifest Deity of Christ had led the 
apostles to do, and in the doing of it that Deity was still 
further unveiled and unfolded to their ardent gaze. 
Their loyalty to his teaching followed as a matter of 
course. They would have permitted themselves to be 
torn limb from limb rather than change his orders or his 
Ordinances. Their vivid conviction as to his Deity photo- 
graphed like a flash of lightning upon their sensitized 
hearts an indescribably strong devotion to his person. 
Who would have dared suggest to them the whittling and 
belittling conceptions of Christ contained in modern liber- 
alism? They cut their way sharply through the false re- 
ligions and confusing philosophies and corrupt culture of 
their day. No system, however pretentious or subtle 

r 90 1 



THE DEITY OF CHRIST 



or insinuating, could daunt or defeat or swerve these first 
Baptists, for they had stood on the holy mount with 
Christ. He alone could save. He alone could organize 
his Church. He alone would be permitted to present to 
it its doctrines. And he alone would be recognized in the 
executing or the changing of its ordinances. They wor- 
shiped him. And their spiritual children still worship 
him! The millions of modern Baptists, marvelously 
blest of God despite all their unworthiness, still proclaim 
the Triune God, still press his claims upon the souls of 
men, still declare the infinite compassion of his redemp- 
tion through sacrificial blood, and still baptize those who 
in penitence turn to a living, reigning Christ, into the 
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
Ghost. 

Yet the modern Baptist does not believe in the Deity of 
Christ alone because Paul and John did so. Christ is re- 
vealing himself directly to his modern disciples. We cry 
with the delighted Samaritans : " Now we believe, not 
because of thy speaking : for we have heard for ourselves, 
and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of 
the world." Men are constantly meeting the Divine 
Christ. Slow-witted Moody met him, and became a 
field-marshal of the kingdom of God. Desperate John 
Woolley met him, and turned from thoughts of suicide 
to a noble achievement in service to humanity. Gordon, 
of Boston, met him in the quiet of his library, and the 
Clarendon Street Church became famous the world 
around. And what shall we say of Florence Nightingale 
and Thomas Chalmers, and William Booth, and Hudson 
Taylor, and Charles Spurgeon, and John G. Paton, and 
George Muller, and Andrew Murray? Yes, Baptists of 
America! what shall we say of Henry Morehouse, and 
John A. Broadus, and P. S. Henson, and William Cleaver 
Wilkinson, and Henry Weston, and George C. Lorimer, 
of Mabie and Chivers, of Haskell and Armitage, of Sey- 



91 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



mour and Carroll, of Boardman and Hoyt, of Conant and 
Wooddy, of Hovey and Way land, of Bickel and Clough ? 
Did they not know the Divine Christ? Did they not 
march under Immanuers banner? Did they not gladly 
bow the knee to the Supernal Son of God ? Did they not 
know him in whom they had believed? Were they the 
sons of doubt or the sons of faith? Shall we substitute 
for their kind of leadership the endless interrogations of 
the German universities? Shall we shrink our thoughts 
of the Christ to fit the latitudinarianism of the hour? 
Or shall we expand them in a worthy attempt to make 
room within our minds and hearts for the transcendent 
facts that have to do with a proper faith in God the Son 
of God? 

These are not the days to believe less. Time does not 
dilute, it enriches the stalwart creed of the Baptists. 
" The Bible has passed through the furnace of persecu- 
tions, literary critcisms, philosophic doubt, and scientific 
discovery, and has lost nothing but those human interpre- 
tations which cling to it like alloy to precious metal." 
The centuries have a like witness to the Deity of Christ. 
Time but clears the mists from the towering fact of the 
redemptive manifestation of God in Christ Jesus. 

Yes, the Eternal Christ is with us. He is ours to wor- 
ship and to serve. His bugles are pealing throughout the 
Church Militant. A great hour is upon us. Vast vic- 
tories are within our grasp. Northern Baptists! let us 
repudiate apostasy. Let us demand a leadership in our 
denomination that is above suspicion. Let us inaugurate, 
by a holy loyalty to Christ our God, the noblest era of 
evangelism, missions, justice, and righteousness in all re- 
corded time since Calvary became a fact of history. Let 
us whole-heartedly return to our first love. Let us exalt 
the Name and splendor and preeminence of our majestic 
Redeemer. Then we cannot fail of a stupendous triumph 
in the hearts of men. 

r 92 1 



THE DEITY OF CHRIST 



Lead on, O King Eternal; 

The day of march has come; 
Henceforth in fields of conquest 

Thy tents shall be our home: 
Through days of preparation 

Thy grace hath made us strong, 
And now, O King Eternal, 

We lift our battle-song. 

Lead on, O King Eternal: 

We follow, not with fears: 
For gladness breaks like morning 

Where'er Thy face appears: 
Thy Cross is lifted o'er us: 

We journey in its light; 
The crown awaits the conquest: 

Lead on, O God of Might. 



| 93 | 



VII 

HISTORIC BAPTIST EMPHASIS ON 
PRAYER 



S. W. CUMMINGS, D. D. 

Pastor, First Baptist Church, Pasadena, Calif. 



HISTORIC BAPTIST EMPHASIS ON 
PRAYER 



Historically Baptists have thrown themselves upon 
God. They have recognized no intermediary save 
Jesus himself. Taking the Bible as their creed and 
the Holy Spirit as their guide, they have found access 
to the Father through Christ alone. They have made 
it their first concern to be in harmony with God's re- 
vealed word and God's manifest program. Strength 
of numbers, efficiency of organization, perfection of 
machinery, important in their proper relation, were 
made to take secondary place. Prayer to them has 
been not the attempt to enlist God's approval upon a 
man-made program, but it has been the means of en- 
listing themselves upon the side of God's proposed 
program. 

E. M. Bounds, in opening his book " Power through 
Prayer," says : 

We are constantly on a stretch, if not on a strain, to devise 
new methods, new plans, new organizations to advance the 
Church and secure enlargement and efficiency for the gospel. 
This trend of the day has a tendency to lose sight of the man, 
or sink the man in the plan or organization. God's plan is to 
make much of the man, far more of him than of anything 
else. Men are God's method. The Church is looking for 
better methods; God is looking for better men. 

We are frequently asking what is the distinguishing 
Baptist principle? Doctor Mullins states in his 
" Axioms of Religion " that the historical significance 
of the Baptists is " The competency of the soul in re- 
ligion — a competency under God, not a competency in 
the sense of human self-sufficiency." My old teacher, 

[97] 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



Dr. Henry G. Weston, used to announce the Baptist 
position to be " the personal relation of the personal 
sinner to a personal Christ." Baptists have, and still 
must therefore, put great emphasis upon prayer, as it 
is one of the main links which makes this personal rela- 
tionship possible. 

It has been this personal reliance upon God that has 
.enabled us to grow from a small and despised sect to a 
denomination of leading power in this country and in 
the world. We must not allow any force of circum- 
stances in these present days to turn us aside from 
that high and true position so strongly taken in earlier 
times. 

Our new movement in missionary outlook and enter- 
prise was born in prayer. In the small group of lay- 
men that met in Cleveland, and later in the Committee 
of One Hundred, prayer had first place. The Lay- 
men's Campaign for $1,000,000 and the Victory Cam- 
paign for $6,000,000 grew out of these counsels per- 
meated by prayer. The present status of The New 
World Movement must be kept within the compass of 
prayer or we will find ourselves adrift and helpless. 
Some affirm that the relation of our New World Move- 
ment to The Interchurch Movement has been a 
source of weakness rather than of strength ; that, ac- 
cording to their belief, the policy and appeal of the 
Interchurch has been too much that of man-made 
devices rather than that of absolute confidence and 
dependence upon God's direction and power that Bap- 
tists have ever emphasized. 

The emphasis we put upon prayer reveals itself not 
so much in the time we put upon prayer, or in the 
phraseology in which we shape our prayers, as it is 
revealed in the attitude of our whole life to God and 
our cooperative program with him in Christian service. 

The very conditions superimposed by the World 



98; 



HISTORIC BAPTIST EMPHASIS ON PRAYER 

War and the aftermath of the war have necessarily 
given strong place to the humanitarian call of the 
world. Most of our young people throughout the land 
are touched by this call and desire to make their lives 
tell in some worthy way for the good of others. But 
after all, is not the great need of the world today to be 
brought to a state of mind and heart that recognizes 
not simply a sympathetic Jesus touched by the world's 
pain, but also a holy and judging Christ; where shall 
be raised aloft an authority not ecclesiastical, but 
spiritual and Christian, that shall bring to a self-con- 
fident and self-satisfied humanity, whether organized 
as nations, or unions, or corporations, a note of divine 
judgment in human affairs — a God not of our own 
making, but a God who has made us? This means not 
how we can call in God as an aid or ally to attain the 
plan we have in mind, however worthy, but how we 
can give God the glory and obedience he merits and 
demands. As Doctor Jowett says : " We do not pray 
to ingratiate God's good-will, but to open our souls in 
hospitality. We do not pray in order to create a 
friendly air, but to let it in ; not to propitiate God, but 
to appropriate him." 
Doctor Fosdick says : 

In the churches, service is the popular note, and the favorite 
hymns are " The Son of God Goes Forth to War," " Soldiers 
of Christ Arise," and their kind. Our failure in prayer is 
partly due to the prevailing temper of our generation, which 
in its splendid enthusiasm for work has neglected that culture 
of prayer, on which in the end the finest quality of spirit and 
the deepest resources of power must depend. Is not this 
one reason why keen observers note that our generation is 
marked by practical efficiency and spiritual shallowness? 
May we not hope to keep in ourselves the best gains of this 
efficient age and at the same time recover the " practice of 
the presence of Christ." 

Prayer is above all else communion with God. The 
[99] 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



soul needs and wants God. An instinct of his being 
leads man to Him ; out of the hunger of his heart he 
cries to God, and God answers. In reply to the dis- 
ciples' request, Jesus said, "When ye pray, say, ' Our 
Father.' ' He further encouraged them with the 
thought that if earthly parents give good gifts unto 
their children, how much more the Heavenly Father. 
The filial spirit marks the real approach to God. All 
true prayer is founded on the spirit of our Lord's 
words, " Not my will, but thine be done." The pur- 
pose of prayer should not be to pull God down into our 
ways and to induce him to carry through our plans, 
but to bring us into harmony with his all-wise pur- 
pose, and to discover his will that we may obey it. 
The Christian's cry will be, " Thy kingdom come, thy 
will be done on earth, as it is in heaven." 

In a recent religious periodical the writer of an 
article entitled " The Benedictine Life " says : 

Prayer, like every other kind of effort, has its end; but, un- 
like any other kind of effort, its end is unique — it is the union 
of the soul with God. Prayer is a graduated thing of differ- 
ent degrees and stages, but in each of these the soul becomes 
more and more as God wishes it to be; it gives and loses and 
gets and gives itself again; it gives itself to God, it loses its 
own selfishness, it receives of God's goodness in return, and 
again gives this to others without any spiritual loss. And so, 
quietly, surely, and persistently, now in one way and now in 
another, in darkness, in grayness, or in light, in yearning or 
in hardship, in refreshment or in ease, the soul goes on to 
God, until God, who is ever becoming more attractive to it, 
becomes in the end, the one and only object of its life. 

Prayer should come before planning. Too often we 
form our plan, work out our program, and then ask 
God to help us put the plan or program through. 
Prayer is not " a sort of magic by means of which we 
can induce God against his natural inclination to show 
us a favor." Is it to be wondered at that so many 



[ 100 



HISTORIC BAPTIST EMPHASIS ON PRAYER 

prayers get nowhere and accomplish nothing? "You 
ask and receive not, because you ask amiss." 

Few will doubt the subjective effects of prayer. But 
must we stop there? Does prayer accomplish any- 
thing apart from the reflex influence upon the sup- 
pliant? Can it change conditions? Cure illness? 
Avert danger? Bring blessings? Are there objective 
effects through prayer as well as subjective? Baptists 
of the past evidently believed so. They took the Bible 
seriously and believed what it said. They proved its 
teaching true by experience. 

James says : " Elijah was a man subject to like pas- 
sions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might 
not rain ; and it rained not on the earth by the space of 
three years and six months. And he prayed again, 
and the heavens gave rain." And again the same 
writer says : " The prayer of faith shall save the sick, 
and the Lord shall raise him up " ; and " The effectual 
fervent prayer of the righteous man availeth much." 
Jesus prayed for Simon Peter and for others. He 
taught us in the model prayer he left us to pray each 
day for our daily bread. He said, after casting out the 
evil spirit of the boy at the foot of the Mount of Trans- 
figuration, " This kind goeth not out but by prayer " ; 
and to his disciples he said, " Pray- ye therefore the 
Lord of the harvest, that he. send forth laborers into his 
harvest." 

To the one who holds that the effect of prayer is 
simply subjective, that it is nothing more than a reflex 
influence, it may be answered in the first place that 
there are few men and women of real religious experi- 
ence who have not tested and proved to their complete 
satisfaction the Bible assurances as represented in the 
references given above. 

Grenfell, on the ice-floes, prays and deliverance 
comes ; the mother at home prays, and the boy at col- 

[101] 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



lege is deterred from the evil step whilst on the very- 
threshold ; the boy in the trenches, with sinking heart 
and quaking limbs, waiting for the order to go " over 
the top " which must come in a few minutes, prays for 
courage, and finds what he asks for through the com- 
ing of the sergeant with a friendly word of cheer and a 
clasp of the hand. The page of missionary history is 
full of amazing and miraculous answers to prayer. 
Joseph Clark on the Congo prays as the boat filled 
with cannibals approaches, and a wind rises that blows 
them off. Spurgeon and the wife join in prayer for 
her sinful husband, and the woman goes home to find 
the man on his knees crying for pardon and finding it. 
Gordon prays for the healing of the stricken man, and 
he recovers. George Mueller for years provides food 
and clothes for hundreds of orphan boys by asking 
help from no one save God. 

A few years ago I was a trustee of a home for needy 
boys and girls in Lowell, Mass. I filled the office with 
others simply as a formality, in order to conform with 
the laws of the state. The woman in charge had taken 
over the home some time before. The buildings were 
then in bad repair, and a heavy mortgage stood against 
the property. She never made any appeal to the com- 
munity. The whole upkeep and expense was met by 
donations received unsolicited. I was present at a meet- 
ing when the accounts showed the mortgage paid off, 
the buildings in good repair, with the expense of pro- 
viding for a large number of needy boys and girls in the 
home all met. Day by day this God-fearing and children- 
loving woman made known her wants to her Father in 
heaven, and he never failed through human agents to 
supply the need. 

In the next place, if it be objected that prayer has no 
power to change or offset conditions outside the praying 
mind, because to do so would override the fixed laws of 



[102] 



HISTORIC BAPTIST EMPHASIS ON PRAYER 

nature that God has established, it may be answered 
that God is not a slave to his own laws. The laws he 
has made are his servant, not his master. Moreover 
prayer is a force, and must take its place with all other 
created forces. God is not a God of disorder, but of 
order, and somewhere in his plan the prayer force co- 
operates with other forces to secure the results desired. 
Some one has said: 

Man does not change God's mind when he harnesses elec- 
tricity and makes it do work that otherwise it would not do. 
On the contrary, he fulfils God's will, for God has made man a 
coworker with himself. Likewise prayer does not change 
God's mind. It is man's part in cooperating with God. It does 
in us and gets done through us, what else would be impossible. 

And Dr. Augustus H. Strong puts it thus : 

The plans of God will never be executed unless we pray. But 
the plan of God includes our prayer. God decrees, but we must 
decree also. God has decreed to save the world, but he will 
not save it without us. We have our part to play in his plan, 
and his salvation comes about through the agency of his church, 
his ministry, and his followers everywhere. 

The statements of Jesus are clear and unmistakable. " If 
ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask 
what ye will, and it shall be done unto you." " Whatso- 
ever ye shall ask the Father in my name, ye shall re- 
ceive." " Ask, and it shall be given you." If this means 
anything, then it means everything. 

This leads us to say that while prayer is communion, 
it is also cooperation. It is the bringing of our will into 
union and cooperation with God's will. It will be of no 
avail to petition God to do something we can do for our- 
selves. We have no right to call upon God to take our 
place, so we shall not be compelled to put forth the per- 
sonal effort and sacrifice necessary to attain the desired 
end. God never does for man what man can do for him- 
self. But when man finds himself at the end of his 

no3i 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



rope, where his power is exhausted and only God can 
meet the emergency, it is then that God makes man's ex- 
tremity his opportunity and does for man what he can- 
not do for himself. It is well stated that " Work with- 
out prayer is presumption, and prayer without work is 
sacrilege," or, by a boy, in these words, " Prayer is 
promising God I will do my best, and trusting him to do 
what I can't." Men can do nothing so efficient as to 
pray. It is the greatest privilege of the Christian church. 
Through prayer man obtains audience with the ruler of 
the universe. Through prayer the power of omnipo- 
tence is at the disposal of the weakest saint. 

In the dawn of this new day which gains its incentive 
from Calvary's Cross and now rises over the charred 
battle-fields of Europe to prove that those who fell for 
righteousness have not died in vain, are we fit for our 
task if we let the insidious working of the Evil One 
manifest itself in the undermining of faith and the sub- 
stitution of material for spiritual advancement ? Has not 
the time come when we must put greater emphasis upon 
prayer? We are unequal to the world's call unless we 
throw ourselves in complete dependence on him, and let 
his sufficiency overcome our insufficiency, his strength 
making us strong indeed through the power gained in 
the communion and cooperation made possible by prayer. 

At one time I was pastor of a church in a thriving 
manufacturing town in Nova Scotia. At the mouth of 
a coal-mine several miles from the town had been erected 
a large electrical power-plant. Over wires the power 
was carried to a central distributing-point and thence to 
every factory in the town. From a room in each fac- 
tory the power could be turned on to drive each indi- 
vidual machine. A child could turn on the switch that 
allowed power to operate through each machine and pro- 
duce the result desired. God is operating a great power- 
house. Over invisible wires this power can be com- 

r 1-041 



HISTORIC BAPTIST EMPHASIS ON PRAYER 

municated to each church and individual member 
throughout the world. Prayer is the switch that opens 
the channel of communication whereby God's power be- 
comes effective. Wherefore, " Men ought always to 
pray, and not to faint." 






[105] 






VIII 
AN UNEXPECTED MESSAGE 



J. W. PORTER, D. D. 

Editor, '* The Western Recorder ' 



AN UNEXPECTED MESSAGE 



Mr. President and Brethren, with all my heart I wish 
to thank you for your cordial invitation to address this 
distinguished body of Baptists. In my judgment, there 
is nothing better than Baptists, but more Baptists and 
better Baptists. I desire also to assure you, that I never 
have, and never expect to feel more " at home," no, not 
even when I go home to heaven, than among you, who 
are contending for the like precious faith. 

I shall choose, as a basis for my remarks, the words 
that have made The Western Recorder perhaps the most 
loved and hated religious paper in all the world. Yet its 
shame is its glory, and its glory is to put to flight the 
enemies of the once delivered faith. It tries to thank 
God for its friends and its foes, and has the reputation 
of usually meeting the expectations of both. Let me, 
then, for a few minutes, exhort you to " earnestly con- 
tend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints." 

Contention is the law of life, from the cradle to the 
grave. Apparently, God has not always permitted the 
survival of the fittest, but in all ages and with all people, 
he has decreed the struggle for existence. Life begins 
with a gasp, and goes out with a groan, and ceaseless 
contention marks each step of the way. Only in the re- 
ligious realm do men deny the necessity for constant 
contention. Alas, we have fallen upon times, when many 
seem to believe that one faith is as good as another, and 
that no faith is good enough to contend for. The man 
who believes one doctrine is as good as another, is doc- 
trinally good for nothing. Practically the entire civil- 
ized world has been contending on the bloody battle-field. 

[109] 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



Millions have not counted their lives dear, that victory 
might come in the battle for universal freedom. Oh, 
that something of this same earnestness and deathless 
determination might characterize the soldiers of the 

Cross ! 

Sure I must fight, if I would reign; 

Increase my courage, Lord ; 
I'll bear the toil, endure the pain, 
Supported by thy word. 

Conviction and contention have the same relation as 
cause and effect. One will contend for that which he 
believes in and loves. A man must, and will, contend for 
his honor and for the sanctity of his home. Yea, he will 
lay down his life for his loved ones. Should occasion 
demand, I trust I too should have the loyalty to lay 
down my life for those I hold dearer than life; yet 
should God require me to choose between my family and 
my faith, I should unhesitatingly choose the faith once 
for all delivered to the saints. With a heart bursting 
with a boundless love, I would turn from them, sus- 
tained by the everlasting consolation that he who would 
not forsake father and mother, and houses and lands for 
" My sake," is unworthy of the Cross and the Crown. 

I am not unmindful, that owing to my contention, I am 
frequently referred to as " a Baptist and a half." Surely 
my unconscious friends do me too much honor, though 
I rejoice, and will rejoice in their words of splendid 
praise. The man who buys bank-stock at one hundred 
cents on the dollar, and it becomes worth one hundred 
and fifty cents, surely has cause for congratulation. 
Among our many acquaintances we cannot now recall 
one, who would prefer his bank-stock being fifty per 
cent, below par, rather than fifty per cent, above. There 
may be such, but we have not met them. 

We should bear in mind that contending for the faith 
is not a matter of choice, but of positive command. It is 



f 110 



AN UNEXPECTED MESSAGE 



impossible to obey Christ and please God without con- 
tending for the faith. The man who will not contend 
for the faith is not apt to contend for the Christ. Surely 
we can afford to contend for him who contended with 
death and hell for us. 

Mark you, we are not commanded to contend for 
faith, or a faith, but " the " faith. Saving faith is a 
subjective proposition; but the faith is objective. It is a 
correlated system of New Testament doctrines, that is 
subject to neither addition, nor subtraction. Many have 
faith in Christ, and are therefore saved, and yet do not 
hold, or contend for the once delivered faith. 

It will not suffice to say, " My faith is all right, though 
there is a little error in it." With equal propriety, we 
might say of a glass of water, that " It is good drinking- 
water, though it has a little poison in it." A pie is not 
acceptable to the average man, or woman, though it con- 
tain only one fly. One fly is quite enough to make saint, 
or sinner, say " good-bye " to an otherwise excellent pie. 

The churches are on the Mountain of Temptation. 
Only recently they have been offered the kingdoms of 
this world and the glory of them, if they would substi- 
tute social service for a blood-bought redemption. If 
they would only open their doors to the unregenerate and 
the unbaptized, they were promised untold wealth, and 
suitable salaries for preachers. With all the earnestness 
of our soul we believe the success of the Interchurch 
Movement would mean the recrucifixion of Christ, and 
that too, at the hands of his professed friends. Millions 
of noble men and women followed in its train, and yet 
its attack was more deadly than any ever launched by its 
enemies. The rattlesnake before he strikes, gives his 
deadly rattle ; the viper, before he vomits his venom in 
the veins of his victim, gives his hiss; the tiger, before 
he rends his prey, gives his growl; and the wild eagle, 
before he seizes his victim, gives his scream of warning; 



[in] 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



but this ecclesiastical Goliath, in the guise of a friend, 
without warning, sought the destruction of doctrines and 

denominations. Should it succeed, we will virtually 
have two popes — one on the Tiber, the other on the 
Hudson. 

The fact that this faith was delivered to us., is quite 
sufficient to cause us to contend for it. We are trustees 
for the truth, and well may we sing " A charge to keep 
I have." 

We are stewards not only of dollars, but also of doc- 
trines. Sound dollars without sound doctrines are as 
sounding brass and tinkling cymbals. It would prove a 
good investment, for time and eternity, if some of our 
churches would exchange all that they have for a Xew 
Testament faith. Y\ "hen some of our brethren become 
as liberal with their dollars as they are with the doctrines 
committed to their keeping, they will have as much, or 
more money, than the Interchurch Movement promised 
them. Personally. I would rather misappropriate en- 
trusted funds, than the entrusted faith. As a denomi- 
nation, we dare not become defaulters ; we must, and by 
the grace of God. will not violate a sacred obligation. 

Just here I am reminded that, even concerning saving- 
faith. Baptists have all the best of it. For example, if, 
as some insist, we are saved by works, certainly Baptists 
have their share. If we are saved by baptism. Baptists 
have the only one that is universally esteemed scriptural. 
Should it finally appear to us all. as it now does to not a 
few, that salvation is by grace. Baptists will be more 
than conquerors : but what about others ? 

My friends, the enemy will not permit me to forget, 
that to those who earnestly contend for the faith, there 
will be applied some more or less endearing epithets. 
For instance, some of my somnambulistic friends occa- 
sionally refer to me as " hidebound." Wise or other- 
wise, the charge is literally and figuratively true. My 



[112 



AN UNEXPECTED MESSAGE 



hide is bound to my body, and will be, I trust, till the 
" skin-worms " begin their task. If a " skinning " is 
needed, I prefer to be the skinner, rather than the 
" skunt." Of course, if one's hide was not bound to the 
body, he might exchange it with the same facility that 
characterizes the exchange of ecclesiastical cuticle by 
some. Should a number of our friends, who are not 
" hidebound," lay off their hides, for a season, we would 
suggest a thorough tanning before they are returned to 
cover their tenements of clay, or sand, as the case may 
be. 

Those who are set for the defense of the gospel are 
quite commonly termed " narrow." For all such I must 
plead " guilty " to the impeachment. Truth is, and ever- 
more must be, narrow. You may relate an incident in a 
thousand different ways, but it happened in only one 
way. We may tell many falsehoods concerning a mat- 
ter, but the truth in only one way. The truth is narrow, 
and marked by metes and bounds. To broaden the 
bounds of truth is to enter the domain of falsehood. It 
is impossible to broaden a body of water without reduc- 
ing the depth. Intellectual shallowness usually comes 
with spiritual broadness. We have yet to hear of a 
husband who compliments his wife upon her broad ideas 
of virtue. Social broadness concerns itself with affini- 
ties and frequently terminates in the divorce court. 
Political broadness often ends in the Federal peniten- 
tiary ; while spiritual broadness quite frequently contents 
itself with " thirty pieces of silver," without the sequel 
of the potter's field. At all events, the New Testament 
gives us some specific information concerning two well- 
known ways : " Enter ye in at the strait gate : for wide 
is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruc- 
tion, and many there be which go in thereat: because 
strait is the gate, and narrow is the way which leadeth 
unto life, and few there be that find it." 



[113] 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



So we see that we have a " broad " way for broad 
people, and a " narrow " way for narrow people. One 
is broad and beautiful, but its terminal conditions are 
not all that could be desired. 

This faith is a finality, since it " was once for all " 
delivered to the saints. It is just as complete as is the 
atonement. It cannot in the very nature of the case be 
" progressive," but is a fixed and unchanging quantity. 
The fact of the late war did not, and could not, in any 
way change one jot or tittle of this faith. " Time writes 
no wrinkles on its brow," and it is immutable amid 
countless mutations. It is as divinely adapted to the 
needs of the twentieth century as to the first, in which 
it was given. There is no such thing as a new truth in 
theology, if that theology is built upon the New Testa- 
ment. Some years ago an editor of The Recorder of- 
fered one hundred dollars for a new truth. The reward 
is still unclaimed. 

The destructive critic, or any other agency of Satan, 
cannot change this faith. Hear the words of the Lord : 
" If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add 
unto him the plagues that are written in this book: and 
if any man shall take away from the words of the book 
of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the 
book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the 
things which are written in this book." Let us beware, 
lest we bring this consuming curse upon us. 

Let us, then, brethren, in spite of the " perilous times " 
in which we live, continue to contend earnestly for the 
faith, until He comes and consummates our contention in 
millennial glory. May the God of all grace hasten the 
coming of the day, when obedience to the one Lord, one 
faith, and one baptism shall cover the world as the 
waters cover the sea; for then, and not till then, can 
Baptists cease their Christ-commanded contention for 
the faith once for all delivered to the saints. 



[114] 



AN UNEXPECTED MESSAGE 



Note: Doctor Porter is editor of The Western Recorder, 
Louisville, Ky. He was reporting the Conference for his paper. 
He was called for by the Conference in response to his most 
generous offer to finance and publish in book form the Confer- 
ence addresses. This offer was gratefully acknowledged by the 
Committee, but declined, as the chairman said, because Doctor 
Porter hailed from the land where they still believe that " only 
hot biscuit are fit food for Christians." Doctor Porter is also 
pastor of the First Baptist Church at Lexington, Ky., and made 
many friends by this visit to our Convention. 



! U5 | 



IX 



THE BIBLE AT THE CENTER OF THE 
MODERN UNIVERSITY 



A. C. DIXON, D. D. 

Professor* The Bible Institute, Los Angeles, Calif. 



THE BIBLE AT THE CENTER OF THE 
MODERN UNIVERSITY 

The first verse of Genesis, " In the beginning God cre- 
ated the heaven and the earth," reads like a perfect crea- 
tion. There is no hint of fiery nebulosity. " The 
heaven " and " the earth " have clearly defined meanings 
in the Pentateuch. 

The inspired comment upon it in Isaiah 45 : 18 in- 
forms us that God " formed the earth and made it : he 
established it: he created it NOT WASTE; he formed 
it to be inhabited." 

" The heaven " remained perfect, but " the earth," by 
some power not revealed, was wrecked. Mr. Anstey, 
author of " The Romance of Chronology," insists that the 
Hebrew word rendered " was " in the Authorized Ver- 
sion must be translated became. " The earth BECAME 
without form and void, and darkness was upon the face 
of the deep." Other authorities admit that it may be 
thus translated. The first three verses give us an 
epitome of the whole Bible : 

1. Construction: God's perfect creations. 

2. Destruction : The wreck of God's perfect creations. 

3. Reconstruction: Restoration of order out of chaos. 
Redemption is reconstruction, restoring man to the 

perfect character in the image of God which sin has 
wrecked. And the means used in reconstruction, ma- 
terial and spiritual, is God's Word: "God said"; "God 
said." And whatever God said was done. God's will 
expressed in words worked the wonders of creation and 
restoration. " God said, Let there be light " ; and when- 
ever God speaks, there is light. " God divided the light 

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BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



from the darkness " ; and this dividing of light from 
darkness will continue until at last there will be only 
two worlds, one of light and the other of darkness. 
" God called the light day, and the darkness he called 
night." " And God called the firmament heaven." The 
Bible is God's dictionary of definitions, and its authority 
is the highest. When God defines sin, salvation, heaven, 
hell, or any other subject, it is wise to accept his defini- 
tion as final. He knows. 

Mature Product First 

" God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb 
yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after its 
kind." It is plain that the mature product comes first. 
The herb yields the seed; not the seed the herb. The 
tree yields the fruit; not the fruit the tree. 

" And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly 
the moving creature that hath life, and let the fowl fly 
above the earth." As in the vegetable, so in the animal 
kingdom, the mature product comes first, not the life 
germ producing the living creature, but the living crea- 
ture that has the life germ. Not the egg that produces 
the fowl, but the fowl that produces the egg. This is 
economy of miracle. If the germ of animal or egg of 
fowl comes first, then there must be a series of many 
miracles to produce the mature product without the fos- 
tering care of motherhood. But if the mature product 
comes first, reproduction takes place by natural law. No 
further miracle is needed. We will not pause to view this 
in relation to present-day science. Of that later. What 
appears now is that the Genesis record places the mature 
product first, whatever its relation to modern " science." 

A Perfect Civilization 

It is also evident that in the moral and social world the 
perfect comes first. In the second chapter of Genesis 

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THE BIBLE IN THE UNIVERSITY 

is the highest type of civilization this world has ever seen. 
There is a perfect man and a perfect woman. And there 
can be no perfect society unless there be perfect indi- 
viduals. 

There is for this perfect man and perfect woman per- 
fect environment. " God planted a garden eastward in 
Eden, and there he put the man whom he had formed." 
They are in the midst of fertility, beauty, and plenty. 

There is perfect employment. " The Lord God took 
the man, and put him into the garden, to dress it and to 
keep it." Here is industry exerting itself in the cultiva- 
tion of the beautiful and the useful, an ideal condition. 

There is perfect rest. " God blessed the seventh day. 
and sanctified it." One day's rest in seven is the need 
of man's body and mind. The fifth day and the tenth 
have been tried, but they do not meet man's physical and 
moral need. He is built for one day's rest in seven. 

There is perfect law, for God himself is the law-giver. 
" The Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every 
tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat : but of the tree 
of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it." 
This invests him with the dignity of moral responsibility. 

There is perfect love in the marriage of one man 
and one woman. " Therefore shall a man leave his 
father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife : 
and they shall be one flesh." It is not said that the 
woman shall leave all and cleave to her husband. It is 
taken for granted that she will do that. But the hus- 
band leaves all for her. She has preeminence in the 
realm of love, and even a suffragette ought to be satisfied 
with that. 

Has any civilization on earth given woman a higher 
position than that ? Verily not. 

There is perfect life. In the material, mental, moral, 
and spiritual realm all things are good. There is no 
disease or death. Perfect life of body and soul prevails. 

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BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



A civilization of perfect character, perfect environ- 
ment, perfect employment, perfect rest, perfect law, per- 
fect love, and perfect life has never been surpassed in 
the history of the world. 

The Wreck of God's Perfect Order 

But there comes a change. A powerful personality, 
who may have had something to do with wrecking the 
perfect earth at first, comes on the scene. Speaking to 
those who had been listening to God's Word, he first 
calls in question the fact of revelation. " Yea, hath God 
said? " " Are you sure that God has spoken at all? Does 
God speak directly to his creatures? Is there such a 
thing as a revelation from God ? " Satan puts an inter- 
rogation-point after the fact of revelation; and the fact 
that he continues to do so is clear proof that the person- 
ality who operated in Eden is at work in the world to- 
day. And when the reply is given, " God hath said," he 
calls in question the truth of revelation. " Thou shalt 
not surely die." " Such a revelation is too severe. It 
savors of cruelty. A God of love could not have said it ; 
or if he did, we have a right to reject it. It violates our 
inner consciousness." Another proof that the person- 
ality in Eden is active in the world today. 

Then he goes a step farther and offers knowledge as a 
substitute for revelation. " God doth know that in the 
day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be open, and ye 
shall be as gods, KNOWING." " Reject God's revela- 
tion, or act independently of it, and your sphere of 
knowledge will be enlarged. Now you know only good ; 
then you shall know good and evil" This enlargement 
of knowledge marks the difference between heaven and 
earth, if not between heaven and hell. In heaven they 
know only the good; in hell only the evil; on earth good 
and evil. A desire to know the evil as well as the good has 
wrecked the character of many a young man in a few 

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THE BIBLE IN THE UNIVERSITY 

weeks after he has come from the pure atmosphere of a 
Christian home in the country to the great city with its 
monstrous mixture of good and evil. 

Some of our educational institutions do not hesitate to 
offer to students in lecture and text-book the evil as well 
as the good. At the commencement of a theological 
seminary, I heard the baccalaureate speaker say that 
seminaries ought to keep on their faculties at least one 
heretical professor, so that the students may learn the 
other side. That is, one professor at least should be per- 
mitted to play the part of Satan by calling in question or 
denying the revelation from God, so that the students 
may know the evil as well as the good. Another proof 
that the personality in Eden still lives, and has to do with 
the preparation of baccalaureate addresses. 

By questioning the fact of revelation and then denying 
the truth of revelation with an offer of knowledge as a 
substitute for obedience and a further appeal to the 
physical nature, a " tree good for food," to the esthetic 
nature, " pleasant to the eyes," and to the intellectual 
nature, " to make one wise," Satan succeeds in wrecking 
God's perfect civilization. Sin enters " with all its woe." 
Man is brought down to Satan's level. " Because thou 
hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle. Upon 
thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the 
days of thy life." And if Satan can induce us to call in 
question the fact of revelation, deny the truth of revela- 
tion, and accept knowledge as a substitute for revelation 
through our physical, esthetic, or intellectual natures, he 
will bring us down to the dirt level with himself, and 
give us a diet of dust earthiness instead of the manna 
which comes down from heaven. He would thus make 
us crawl with him in the dust of low desire rather than 
look up and wait upon the Lord, that we may " mount 
up with wings as eagles, run, and not be weary, walk, 
and not faint." 

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BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



The Conflict of the Ages 

As I stood on a hilltop near Geneva, Switzerland, and 
looked down upon the confluence of the Rhone and the 
Arve, I could but think of these chapters of Genesis. 
The Rhone flows out of Lake Geneva as pure as crystal, 
while the Arve conies tumbling down from the Alps tur- 
bid with the many impurities it has gathered. As soon 
as the two rivers meet, there begins a conflict between 
mud and crystal ; and after a few miles, the muddy 
Arve has gained the victory; the whole river is turbid. 
The first two chapters of Genesis are like the Rhone, 
clear as crystal, flowing from the great lake of God's 
power, wisdom, and love. There is no trace of sin. 
But the third chapter is like the muddy Arve flowing into 
this crystal river. There begins at once the conflict be- 
tween mud and crystal till the mud of sin, through 
Satan's subtle temptations, gains the victory, and the 
whole river has been muddy ever since. 

The river is very muddy when Cain murders his 
brother in a religious quarrel (no falling upward here), 
and goes out from the presence of God ever afterward 
to ignore him and to found a civilization without God or 
altar. He builds a city, and it may have been magnifi- 
cent in its architecture. But God has no place in it. 
There is education bordering on a university curriculum, 
but God is also excluded from that. Professor Jabal 
teaches agriculture and sends out many cattlemen who 
live in the fields with their herds. It was a civilization 
like that which still exists in portions of Western 
America, far removed from barbarism. Professor Jubal 
gave himself to music, and from him went out a great 
musical family skilled in handling harp and organ. Pro- 
fessor Tubal-Cain was a great metallurgist, " an in- 
structor of every artificer in brass and iron." It is an 
age of agriculture, music, and metal, but of moral de- 

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THE BIBLE IN THE UNIVERSITY 

generacy. Polygamy begins. " Lamech took unto him- 
self two wives " and murdered two men on account of 
them. He is the first polygamist, and the second re- 
corded murderer. 

But the crystal water is still in conflict with the mud. 
Along the line of Seth, whom Eve recognized as spiritual 
successor to Abel, there continued a civilization which 
recognized God and called upon his name. The altar 
occupies a prominent place. We have in Genesis five 
the genealogy of these worshipers from Seth to Noah, in 
which is another -Enoch, who did something better than 
give a name to a city. He walked with God. Noah 
also reached the same eminence. But the Arve of the 
godless civilization of Cain soon flows into the Rhone of 
the civilization of Seth, and again pollutes its waters. 
" The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they 
were fair, and they took them wives of all which they 
chose." The result was a race of giants, " mighty men," 
" men of renown," who filled the earth with wickedness, 
so degenerate that God was compelled to clear the earth 
of them, that he might start again a pure civilization with 
the altar and the family at its center. The student of 
history is startled by the fact that the vitiation of the 
true by the false results in strength with violence. Con- 
stantine by uniting the Christian Church with the Pagan 
State filled the world with a violence which drenched 
the centuries with the blood of martyrs. It made the 
Spanish Inquisition and many a kindred cabal of perse- 
cution. 

Two Civilizations 

In 1620 there landed on Plymouth Rock a little com- 
pany of men and women who were chased from their 
homes in England by the violent spirit of this unholy 
alliance. In the hold of the " Mayflower " they wrote a 
compact which had in it two phrases, " for the common 

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BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



good," and " just and equal laws," which have been 
mighty factors in fostering the spirit of democracy and 
the love of justice among the American people. 

When I was in Old Boston, England, I went to the 
Guild Hall where are the prison cells in which John 
Bradford, William Brewster, and others were incarcer- 
ated. I requested the janitor to shut me in one of the 
cells, that I might sit in the dark on the hard stone seat 
and meditate upon the " Mayflower " and what the little 
vessel with its Puritan passengers meant to the world. 
My mind flew across the Atlantic to the museum at Ply- 
mouth in which are John Alden's well-worn Bible and 
the cradle in which little Peregrine White, the baby born 
on the " Mayflower," was rocked. Near by is the pot 
in which the pilgrims cooked their common dinners, and 
beside it, the long flint-lock gun of Miles Standish, the 
only soldier in the company. Here are the four pillars 
of the American commonwealth, the Bible, the home, the 
pot, and the gun. As I sat in the narrow cell, I saw 
the " Mayflower " still sailing across the ocean of time 
with all the nations on earth trying to get on board. And 
then I saw her multiplied a hundredfold crossing the 
Atlantic with three hundred thousand soldiers every 
month, still carrying the open Bible, the Christian home, 
the pot, and the gun, that all the nations of the earth 
may now enjoy the liberty which the Pilgrim Fathers 
braved the perils of the ocean to secure. 

Then I saw another ship landing at Jamestown, Ya., 
with a civilization on board which approved of human 
slavery without thought of " just and equal laws " or 
" the common good." The " Plymouth Rock " and 
" Jamestown " civilizations were again like the conflu- 
ence of the Rhone and the Arve, mud and crystal in con- 
flict; and the mud at length prevailed. The spirit of 
slavery mastered New England. In the Old South 
Church, Boston, is still preserved the gallery under the 

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THE BIBLE IN THE UNIVERSITY 

belfry in which the slaves sat during the Sunday ser- 
vices. But finally the Plymouth Rock civilization was 
victorious, and since 1865 there have been no slaves 
under the American flag. Today "Old Glory" has the 
new glory of having delivered little Cuba from her strong 
oppressor and of having joined with Great Britain and 
her allies in defending the weak against the aggression 
of the strong. The same spirit has led to the victory of 
prohibition over the oppressive powers of the drink 
traffic in America, and now seeks to drive this enslaver 
of man from the face of the earth. 

Genesis of " Evolution " 

Let us trace this modern conflict between the weak 
and their oppressors back to its source. The Greek 
philosophers, between 700 and 300 B. C, were, with one 
exception, evolutionists. Thales, of Miletus, taught that 
water was the primordial germ. Heraclitus believed 
that fire originated all things, and Pythagoras, the mathe- 
matician, was confident that number somehow brought 
life and form into existence. Plato, the greatest of all 
Greek philosophers, did not agree with his compeers. 
He believed that man began equal with the gods, and 
that beasts were degenerated men, contending that the 
monkey came down from man and not man up from the 
monkey. And Plato had the weight of evidence on his 
side even without a revelation, for any one with eyes in 
his" head can see that there is more tendency in men to 
become- monkeys than in monkeys to become men. 

Darwin and Malthus 



Charles Darwin, in his university course, caught the 
vision of the Greek philosophers and, rejecting the 
theory of Plato, became an ardent advocate of the 
hypothesis that everything was evolved from beneath; 
that life originated with germinal; embryonic beginnings; 

[127] 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



that in nature there is perpetual war, which was called 
" the struggle for existence," the strong and fit destroy- 
ing the weak and unfit, and thus causing everything to 
move upward. Darwin did not get his idea of perpetual 
warfare in nature from the Greek philosophers, who 
were more benevolent in their thinking. They believed 
that all life and form were evolved from beneath by 
quiet forces ; but they did not give the strong the scien- 
tific right to destroy the weak. Darwin confesses in 
his autobiography that he received this suggestion from 
Rev. Thomas Robert Malthus, an Anglican clergyman, 
who died in 1834, when Darwin was twenty-five years 
old. I do not know that Darwin ever met Malthus, but 
he was a careful reader of his books, and in his auto- 
biography admits that he was indebted to Malthus for 
the suggestion. Malthus taught that man increases with 
geometrical ratio, while food supply increases with only 
arithmetical ratio. Therefore wars and pestilences are 
necessary, that the surplus population may be killed off, 
in order that the remainder may survive. 

A little clear thinking makes it clear that Malthus was 
wrong. Man does not increase with geometrical ratio, 
while food does increase " some thirty, some sixty, and 
some an hundredfold." But Darwin was deceived by 
the plausible reasoning of Malthus, and made this mis- 
take one of the foundation-stones of his scientific sys- 
tem. It is a libel upon a benevolent God, who has 
provided enough for man and beast without demanding 
that the strong shall kill the weak. The fact that 
dolphins chase flying-fish for food, and that some ani- 
mals are intended for the food of others does not prove 
that in nature there is perpetual warfare, but rather the 
contrary. It is a benevolent provision that some animals 
should be intended as food for others, so that the strong 
may subsist without a struggle with their equals 'for 
existence. Read George Paulin's books, " No Struggle 

[1281 



THE BIBLE IN THE UNIVERSITY 

for Existence," " No Natural Selection," and yon will 
see proof enough that there is no struggle for existence 
even among carnivorous animals, a benevolent God hav- 
ing provided a kinder method of preventing their dan- 
gerous increase. 

Of course, we are all evolutionists in the sense of 
Mark 4 : 28, " First the blade, then the ear, after that 
the full corn in the ear." Everybody knows that the 
embryo or germ in plant and animal develops by growth 
into the mature product. 

But evolutionary processes have no history. The 
growth of embryo or germ into mature product, as we 
see it, simply suggests to the imagination a similar 
process which, it is claimed by evolutionists, took place 
in the abysmal past. No one has ever observed it and 
its history, therefore, cannot be written. If, however, 
life began on earth with immature embryonic beginnings 
and evolved through countless ages into the mature 
product, it must have done so in obedience to the same 
laws which govern the development of the immature 
embryo as we see it develop today, and must be subject 
to the same limitations. Bear this in mind, for it is a 
fact of great importance. 

Now, though I confess a repugnance to the idea that 
an ape or an orang-outang was my ancestor, I have been 
willing to accept the humiliating fact, if proved ; but the 
more I have investigated, the more thoroughly I have 
been convinced that, if I am to be an evolutionist and 
thus keep up with the modern academic drift, I must 
refuse to let the gray matter of my brain work, while 
I permit others to do my thinking for me and accept 
their authority, not because of the reasons they give for 
their theory, but solely because of their eminence in the 
literary and educational world. But there are insur- 
mountable difficulties in the way of my permitting emi- 
nence to decide this matter for me. 

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BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



Facts Against Evolution 

1. Immature, embryonic life is never reproductive. 
An embryo never multiplies into an embryo. Eggs do 
not hatch eggs. Wheat does not reproduce itself into 
wheat. Babies do not bear babies. Apples do not mul- 
tiply into apples. Only the mature product can produce 
an embryo or germ. This is true even in the lowest 
stratum of life. The cell becomes mature before it 
articulates another cell. 

Indeed, an embryo does not produce the mature prod- 
uct, though it develops into it. The mature product is 
simply a full-grown embryo. The microscope reveals a 
symmetrical oak in the acorn. But the mature product 
may bring into being what did not exist before as a liv- 
ing organism. 

It is not a question as to which came first, the embryo 
or the mature product, the egg or the eagle. If the egg 
was created first, with the possibilities, under certain 
conditions, of hatching into an eagle in a few days, that 
is not evolution; that is direct creation. Evolution de- 
mands that the egg shall come into existence and through 
millions of years evolve into an eagle. 

If now, I am to be an evolutionist, I must believe that 
immature embryonic life came into existence millions of 
years ago, and continued to exist through the countless 
ages required for its development without the power of 
reproduction. An absurdity, which calls for great scien- 
tific credulity. 

2. Immature, embryonic life is unimprovable. The 
evolutionary theory demands that things shall move up- 
ward. There must be improvement. But immature 
embryonic life can be improved only by improving the 
mature product. If you would secure better eggs, you 
must make better hens. " To touch protoplasmic life is 
to destroy it." Seek to improve the quality of an egg 

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THE BIBLE IN THE UNIVERSITY 

by working directly upon it, and see the result! Darwin 
experimented with pigeons ; but if he experimented with 
pigeons' eggs in any decided manner, he doubtless had 
on his hands a basket of rotten eggs. " A good tree 
bringeth forth good fruit," and the only way to get good 
fruit is to make the tree good. It is a universal fact that 
the only way to improve the quality of embryo or germ 
is to improve the mature product that yields it. If, 
therefore, I am to be an evolutionist, I must believe that 
immature embryonic life came into existence millions of 
years ago and continued to exist through successive ages 
without the power of reproduction and continued to im- 
prove without the power of improvement. A twofold 
absurdity, which amounts to an impossibility in a healthy 
mind. 

3. Immature, embryonic life is unpreservable. Em- 
bryos and germs are easily destroyed. To exist at all, 
they must be carefully guarded, and nature makes pro- 
vision for this. But no such provision has been or can 
be made for the preservation of embryos or germs 
through thousands of years. I thought there was one 
exception in the grains of wheat found with the mum- 
mies of Egypt, which, after four thousand years, ger- 
minated and produced wheat, though four thousand 
years is but the tick of a clock in the chronology of 
evolution, but Doctor Kyle, the distinguished archeolo- 
gist, tells me that there is no exception, for it has been 
proved that the wheat found with Egyptian mummies 
was in the straw which the workman used in packing 
them for shipment. A member of the British Associa- 
tion recently said that, if embryonic life had been intro- 
duced into the chaos of this earth, as it is said to have 
been introduced, it could not have survived. The evolu- 
tionary hypothesis demands that embryonic life was in- 
troduced in the midst of chaotic conditions and was 
preserved through succeeding ages. My difficulties in- 

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BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



crease, for if I am to be an evolutionist, I must believe 
that immature embryonic life came into existence mil- 
lions of years ago, and continued to exist through suc- 
cessive ages without the power of reproduction, con- 
tinued to improve without the power of improvement, 
and continued to be preserved without the power of 
preservation. A threefold absurdity, which no healthy 
mind can admit. 

4. There are two things lacking which are essential to 
the evolutionary theory: SPONTANEOUS GENERA- 
TION AND TRANSMUTATION OF SPECIES. 
Professor Tyndall said that he could see " the promise 
and potency of life in matter." But he saw no such 
thing. As he looked at matter, he really saw the promise 
and potency of death. There is no promise and potency 
of life in a corpse, but there is a promise and potency of 
putrefaction. In wood or stone there is no promise 
and potency of life, but of disintegration into rottenness 
and dust. No scientist of any repute claims that life 
has really originated from lifeless matter. Naturalistic 
evolution which ignores God has no explanation of the 
origin of life. And theistic evolution which admits that 
God must have created matter and introduced life can 
give no good reason why a God who introduces one kind 
of life into suitable environment, should not introduce 
another kind of life under similar fitting conditions. 

The claim that one species of living things in plants or 
animals develops into another species has no facts in 
nature to support it. " After its kind," as in the first 
chapter of Genesis, is universal law. When one species 
unites with another, the result is a hybrid which is sterile, 
so that the stubborn mule stands in the path of the evolu- 
tionist and will not let him pass on his way of error. 

5. Evolution, whether naturalistic, theistic, atheistic, 
or Christian, is pagan in origin and spirit. The Bible, 
which is the text-book of Christianity, teaches that God 



132] 



THE BIBLE IN THE UNIVERSITY 

created the mature product first and left this mature 
product to reproduce itself by natural law. As we have 
seen, this is economy of miracle, while the beginning 
of all life in immature embryonic form is forbidden by 
the scientific fact that embryonic life is never reproduc- 
tive, it is unimprovable and unpreservable. 

One of the most pathetic bits of biography in exis- 
tence is the effect of this pagan teaching and the atmos- 
phere it produced in Darwin himself. In early life 
Darwin was a believer in the Bible as the word of God, 
and he believed that God answered prayer. In his later 
life he confesses with regret that he had lost all taste 
for poetry, music, painting, and religion. But to the 
last he was fond of the habits of worms. He wrote the 
best book on worms ever penned. He glorifies the little 
creatures as benefactors of mankind none too much. . It 
is all true. But what I insist upon is that any theory or 
atmosphere which effaces all taste for music, poetry, 
painting, and religion, while it makes one revel in study- 
ing the habits of worms, has something the matter with 
it ; and, when we observe that the effect of the theory in 
others is to drag them down from the spiritual to the 
natural, from the realm of music, poetry, painting, and 
religion to the realm of the worm as it works in the dirt 
and dark, we are driven to the conclusion that there is 
something in this pagan theory which drags us down into 
the mud, and robs us of the clearer vision and purer 
atmosphere of the higher spiritual realms. 

6. Evolution with its " struggle for existence " and 
"survival of the fittest/' which gives the strong and fit 
the scientific right to destroy the weak and unfit, is re- 
sponsible for the oppression and destruction of the weak 
and unfit by the strong and fit. It has fostered auto- 
cratic class distinctions and is no friend to the democracy 
which stands for the protection of the weak against the 
oppression of the strong. The greatest war in history, 

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BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



which has drenched the world with blood and covered 
it with human bones, can be traced to this source. If 
the strong and fit have the scientific right to destroy the 
weak and unfit, that human progress may be promoted, 
then might is right, and Germany should not be criticized 
for acting upon this principle. 

The "Superman" 

Nietzsche, the neurotic German philosopher, hypno- 
tized the German mind with his pagan brute philosophy. 
" The weak and the botched," said he, " shall perish ; 
first principle of humanity. And they ought to be helped 
to perish. What is more harmful than any vice ? Prac- 
tical sympathy with the botched and weak — Christianity." 
" If what I publish be true," he wrote to an invalid 
woman, " a feeble woman like you would have no right 
to exist." 

" Christianity," he said again, " is the greatest of all 
conceivable corruptions, the one immortal blemish of 
mankind." And he hated it because of its sympathy 
with the weak and botched. He glorified his ideal Ger- 
man " blond beast " and gave to the world a " super- 
man," one-third brute, one-third devil, and one-third 
philosopher. Under the spell of his daring brutality, 
Germany adopted the motto, " Corsica has conquered 
Galilee." Nietzsche's philosophy of beastliness has its 
roots in the evolutionary assumption that the strong 
and fit, in the struggle for existence, have the scientific 
right to destroy the weak and unfit. Under the spell of 
Nietzsche's " superman " there came into the brain of 
the Kaiser the vision of a supernation, a national brute, 
devil and philosopher, with the scientific right to destroy 
all weaker nations and erect his throne upon their ruins. 
One Sunday morning, four months after the war began, 
I' spoke something like this from the Metropolitan Taber- 
nacle pulpit, in London ; and, after the service a gentle- 

[1341 



THE BIBLE IN THE UNIVERSITY 

man with military bearing appeared in the vestry and 
said : " I am a German, brought into London on a cap- 
tured ship; and why I have not been interned I do not 
know ; but I have an intimation that I shall be interned 
next week, and before I go I would like to give you a 
piece of my mind. You have said that this terrible war 
was due to Darwinian evolution, and I believe it. I 
hope I am a Christian. I love Jesus Christ and believe 
the Bible, but my wife and daughter have had their faith 
wrecked by Nietzsche and his pagan gang. But what I 
want to say to you is that we Germans got Darwinism 
from England. We took it from you and worked it out 
to its legitimate consequences. So, when you mention 
it again, speak softly, for you are really getting back 
what you sent." I could not deny it. Back of this war 
and responsibility for it is Darwin's pagan teaching that 
the strong and fit have the scientific right to destroy the 
weak and unfit. 

England and France 

This suggests the fact that France gave to Germany 
her first lessons in the destructive higher criticism of the 
Bible. It was Jean Astruc, a learned, dissolute French 
physician, of Marseilles, who first suggested that Genesis 
had two authors. Doctor Eichhorn, of Germany, took 
Astruc's suggestion as a clue and announced that he had 
discovered many authors. Thus began a movement 
which has done more to discredit the Bible than any other 
movement of modern times. The scientists of Germany 
took Darwinism from England with its struggle for exis- 
tence, giving the strong and fit the scientific right to 
destroy the weak and unfit, and gave to the politicians 
the infernal dictum that might is right, while the German 
theologians took from Jean Astruc his composite-author- 
ship-of-Genesis theory and worked it out to the dis- 
crediting of the Bible as a revelation from God. Thus 

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BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



England and France sent to Germany the forces which 
gave her a " kultur " that robbed her of her Christian 
faith and plunged her into the bottomless pit of national 
degradation. Through Darwin and Astruc England and 
France let loose a flock of scientific and theological vul- 
tures which put their talons into the vitals of academic 
thinking and ethics in Germany, destroying faith in the 
Bible, and vitiating the spiritual life of the people. 
Strengthened by their feasts upon Germany's vitals, 
these ferocious birds returned to England to wreck the 
Christianity founded upon the Bible, which has been the 
glory of English history and which broke the fetters of 
papal superstition that for centuries retarded the progress 
of France. 

It was hoped that this world war, with its unutterable 
horrors, would open the eyes of the educators of En- 
gland and France to the wreck of faith and character 
which their scientific and theological dreamers had 
wrought; but, instead of that, the religious, liberal lead- 
ers of England and France, realizing that their rational- 
istic theories and their books based upon them are in 
danger, are reasserting with nervous haste their destruc- 
tive teachings. While victory on the side of liberty and 
humanity has checked, if not destroyed, German militar- 
ism, it remains for those who believe and love the Bible 
to mobilize and fight the battle for the truth which has 
given to the world its passion for liberty and humanity. 

Darwin and Lincoln 

It is an interesting fact that Charles Darwin and 
Abraham Lincoln were born on the same day, February 
12, 1809, and in the lives of these two men continue the 
battle between mud and crystal. Darwin, born into an 
environment of wealth, through the teachings of Greek 
philosophers and of Malthus became the champion of 
the strong and fit against the weak and unfit. Abraham 

r 136 1 



THE BIBLE IN THE UNIVERSITY 

Lincoln, born into an environment of poverty and strug- 
gle, became the champion of the weak against the strong. 
He believed that the weakest and worst have the right of 
existence with fair treatment, and that the strong and fit, 
instead of destroying and weak and unfit, should be their 
protectors and benefactors. When he saw a negro 
woman in a New Orleans slave-market auctioned off to 
a rich slave-owner, he said, " If I ever get a chance to 
strike that thing, I will hit it hard." And he did hit it 
hard, when he led the movement which resulted in the 
abolition of slavery under the American flag. 

Let us turn again to Genesis and trace the crystal river 
of faith in the coming Messiah in conflict with the mud 
of unbelief. In the curse upon the serpent there is a 
promise that the seed of the woman (not man) shall 
bruise his head. Of course, we know who the serpent 
is : " that old serpent, which is the devil and Satan " 
(Rev. 20: 2). But do not think of Satan as Dore painted 
him, with horns, hoofs, bats' wings, and forked tail. Such 
a monster could tempt no one, except to run and get out 
of his way. Paul declares that Satan in this age is 
transformed as a messenger of light. His mission is to 
give light, historic light, scientific light, all kinds of light, 
if by any means he may satisfy the world with light 
without Him who is the light of the world. Satan would 
have our colleges, universities, seminaries, and churches 
blazing centers of light without the Light, Christ Jesus, 
as atoning Saviour. And Satan wishes his ministers to 
be ministers of righteousness. His favorite is the ethical 
minister who .preaches a high standard of morality and 
humanity, urging people to be good and to do good with- 
out salvation through the atoning blood of Christ. 

One of the great needs of the Christian Church today 
is a university with the Bible at its center as the standard 
of all truth, religious, moral, historic, and scientific, and 
the Lord Jesus Christ preeminent in the realm of knowl- 

[1371 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



edge as in all other realms. The Bible, " the Impreg- 
nable Rock of Scripture," as Gladstone called it, is the 
only book in which its religion, ethics, history, and 
science, are always and everywhere up to date. You have 
doubtless heard of the " scientific morgue " in Paris, a 
rather gruesome place, where dead scientific theories are 
laid out for inspection. Most of them died under 
twenty-five years of age. Almost every theory I studied 
in college is in the scientific morgue. But the Bible is 
not there and never will be. Its statements have fre- 
quently been denied by high authorities, but time has 
always proved that the Bible is right. 

The Bible mentions Sargon, king of Assyria; but the 
historians, in the absence of all mention of Sargon in 
secular history, refused to accept its testimony, until the 
pick and shovel unearthed not only the date and deeds of 
Sargon's reign, but the ruins of his palace. So you see 
the Bible was twenty-five hundred years ahead of the 
historians. 

Wellhausen said that the five kings in Genesis four- 
teen were fictitious characters born in the writer's im- 
agination, but now through the ministry of the pick and 
shovel again it has been discovered that the date of 
Arioch's reign is " the one certain starting-point of 
ancient history." The Bible is again more than four 
thousand years ahead of the historian. 

When Job wrote, " He stretcheth out the north over 
empty space, and hangeth the earth upon nothing," he 
was three thousand years ahead of the astronomers. 
And when Job wrote again, " God understandeth the 
way thereof, to make a weight for the winds," he was 
thousands of years ahead of the scientists who, until 
comparatively recent times, taught that air was without 
weight, not suspecting that it pressed more than fourteen 
pounds upon every square inch. 

And now the facts of science against the fancies of all 



[138 



THE BIBLE IN THE UNIVERSITY 

scientific romancers, ancient and modern, are confirming 
the teachings of Moses and the dim vision of Plato that 
man began perfect and was wrecked by sin. 

In some universities the theological schools are clus- 
tered about the halls of history, philosophy, and science. 
It is time that the order should be reversed. Let the 
Bible school with teachers who believe in the infallible 
Book and give Christ preeminence in all realms, be at the 
center with the halls of history, philosophy, and science 
clustered about it. Let the Sun, and not the earth, be 
the center of God's solar system of truth. 

Paradise Restored 

In Genesis 6 : 14 we are told that God commanded 
Noah to make an ark, and " pitch it within and without 
with pitch." And the Hebrew scholar is almost startled 
to find, as he reads Leviticus, that the Hebrew word 
translated " pitch " in this verse is rendered " atone- 
ment " all through Leviticus. It was the pitch which 
made the ark seaworthy, keeping out the waters of judg- 
ment and keeping in Noah and his family. So the aton- 
ing blood of Christ it is, which keeps out the waters of 
judgment and keeps in the subjects of grace. 

And all through the Bible we can trace the Messianic 
idea which grows fuller and fuller until it finds complete 
fulfilment in the " Lamb as it had been slain standing in 
the midst of the throne." " The Lamb as it had been 
slain " standing suggests life from the dead, and stand- 
ing in the midst of the throne suggests royalty. It is 
the risen, living Christ with the marks of the cross upon 
him who gives us paradise restored. The perfect civili- 
zation in Eden with its perfect environment, perfect em- 
ployment, perfect rest, perfect law, perfect love, and 
perfect life, has been restored. 

To all who have accepted the crucified and risen Christ 
the muddy river has been clarified. God has recon- 

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BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



structed their wrecked world through the death and 
resurrection of Christ. And we need not wait until the 
millennium for this experience in our own souls. If we 
will enthrone the risen Christ with the marks of the cross 
upon him in our hearts and lives, Paradise has been 
restored within us, the reign of Christ in us has begun. 

All hail the power of Jesus' name; 
Let angels prostrate fall; 
Bring forth the royal diadem 
(Ye men of the schools, colleges, and seminaries, and universi- 
ties) 

AND CROWN HIM LORD OF ALL! 



HQ 



THE BAPTIST PROGRAM OF 
EVANGELISM 



V. W. BUSTARD, D. D. 

Pastor, Euclid Avenue Baptist Church, Cleveland, Ohio 



THE BAPTIST PROGRAM OF 
EVANGELISM 



A thing is a success when it does well that for which 
it was intended. This is a practical principle which we 
ought to apply to the work of the church today, as we 
ask ourselves the questions : " Why a Church ? " " What 
Is Its Mission ? " " For What Purpose Did Christ Leave 
It in This World?" 

There are those who tell us the church is here to teach 
the truth, but we know that this is not the whole answer 
to the question nor the whole duty of the church. It is 
not even the primary function of the body of Christ. 
To start with, the church is not so much educational as 
it is regenerational. Or, to state the whole truth, the 
church is primarily regenerational and then educational. 

There are those who tell us that the church is here to 
help solve the social problems of the day and render 
social service to the community. Once again we have 
but a partial answer, for we know that evangelism is 
the program of the church, while social service is the 
by-product of this program. While it is good to clean, 
up a community, it is better to clean up the people who 
live in the community, for the reformation of society is 
made possible only through the regeneration of human 
nature. 

There are those also who tell us that the church is 
here to preach the gospel. Of course the church should 
preach the gospel, but preaching the gospel is not an end 
in itself, neither does it end in itself. It is the divine 
means to a great end, which is the salvation of all those 
who believe in it. To answer our own question fully 
then, we would say, that /the great mission of the church \ 

l 143 ] 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



is to win men and women into Christian discipleship and 
through them establish the kingdom of God upon earth. 

If the Baptist denomination is to adopt this as its 
program, there are three things we ought to believe, 
three things we ought to realize, and three things we 
ought to do. 

The first thing we ought to believe is in the authority 
of the Scriptures and inspiration of the word. The 
Bible is not only the god of books, but it is also the book 
of God. It is the word of God because it reveals the will 
of God. Regardless of the fact that everything has been 
done through centuries to destroy it by enemy, agnostic, 
and higher critic, every book in the Bible says to its 
critic what Paul said to the jailer, " Do thyself no harm, 
we are all here." It is a fact which is beyond contradic- 
tion that the men and the churches, in our denomination, 
who are doing the greatest soul-saving work, are those 
who believe in the authority of the Scriptures and the 
inspiration of the Bible. 

The second thing we ought to believe is in the divinity 
of Christ, and, by this I do not mean that he is divine as 
the rest of us, but he is " God of very God," " God mani- 
fested in the flesh," "God doing his work through his 
own Son for the redemption of the race." What others 
say about Christ ought to make very little difference to 
us, but what Christ says about himself ought to decide 
the matter of his deity beyond ajl controversy. Jesus 
said, " I am not of this world." He said, " I am the 
light of the world," " I am the way, the truth, and the 
life." " Before Abraham was, I am." 

When Thomas said, " My Lord and my God," Jesus 
did not rebuke the disciple nor refute the statement. 
Christianity is the only religion which has a divine 
Saviour in it. Buddha was a teacher, "Mohammed a 
prophet, and Confucius a philosopher, but Jesus is the 
world's only Redeemer. 



[144] 



THE BAPTIST PROGRAM OF EVANGELISM 

The third thing which we ought to believe is the effi- 
cacy of the atonement on the Cross. The Bible reveals 
but, one plan of salvation, and that is. redemption through 
faith in Christ's atoning blood. There is character by 
salvation, but there is no salvation by character. The 
Cross is the pivot around which the progress of the 
world moves and upon which the hopes of humanity 
depend. 

In connection with the evangelistic program of our de- 
nomination, there are three things which we must realize : 

1. There is something from which men must be saved, 
and that is sin. Jesus never denied the reality of sin. 
He dealt with it as something which actually existed in 
the hearts of men and the world around him. He spent 
part of his time in forgiving sinners, but never spent 
any of his time trying to reason sin out of existence. The 
trouble with sin is not that it is unreal, but that it is alto- 
gether too real. Today the church must face sin as the 
chief thing which keeps men from God — something 
which makes possible all the unhappiness that is in the 
world, which fills even the nations of the earth with a 
selfish ambition, and which may at any time turn the 
earth into a human slaughter-house again. 

2. There is something with which man can be saved, 
and that is the power of God. This is the one thing 
which is even greater than the power of sin. Marvelous 
as is the power of God as we see it in the creation of the 
world, it is even greater as we behold it in the redemp- 
tion of man. In this great work of salvation, the church 
does not have to depend so much on its own human 
strength as on God's divine power. In the work of 
man's salvation, God is seen at his best. No one is be- 
yond the reach of his redeeming grace. 

3. There is something to which men should be saved, 
and that is service. God's best gift to men is man, and 
God has seen .fit to employ the redeemed in this great 

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BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



work of world redemption. Angels might well envy us 
the honor of helping others to Christ. The church's 
greatest privilege is to evangelize a lost world. There is 
no other way of saving the world except as man shall 
cooperate with God, and there is no work greater for 
the church to do than this work of winning a world 
lost in sin. 

There are also three things which we must do. These 
three things are found in that one great sentence, which 
fell from the lips of Christ when he said, " Seek first the 
kingdom of God." Here Jesus is establishing the law 
of precedence — teaching us that there are some things 
which because of their importance should precede others, 
and one thing which should always be first. 

I take it that here Jesus is teaching that the interests 
of God's business should precede the interests of our 
own business. We are not to seek first that which per- 
tains to our own worldly advancement but that which 
pertains to the upbuilding of God's kingdom in the world 
and the transaction of God's business on the earth. As 
ambitious as we may be to make a success of our work, 
we should be even more ambitious to make a success of 
God's work. This may look like a hard rule and un- 
doubtedly it has never yet been adopted by Christian 
people, and yet we firmly believe that this is one of the 
things Jesus meant when he established this law of pre- 
cedence. 

Again, Christ also intended that we should put the in- 
terest of God's kingdom ahead of the interest of our 
family affairs. Of course we realize here that we are 
entering into a sacred realm and invading that thing 
which is so near to all men and women, namely, the 
family circle. In our law of precedence undoubtedly 
our family life comes first with its interests and its hap- 
piness, but in Christ's law of precedence the interests of 
God's kingdom are put -first, with the intention in the 



[146] 



THE BAPTIST PROGRAM OF EVANGELISM 

Master's mind that they arc to be kept first, and so our 
sense of divine values is to be established by seeking 
first the interests of the heavenly kingdom. 

In enunciating this principle of precedence, Jesus is 
also trying to establish the fact that the interests of the 
kingdom of God should precede the interest of life itself. 
In a sense there is nothing more sacred than life, and 
yet to live only for the selfish interests of our own lives 
would mean to violate the law of Christ, refuse to follow 
the Master's example, and relegate to the rear the sub- 
lime interests of God's kingdom. Time and again mis- 
sionaries, converted native Christians, and martyrs have 
listened to the voice of the Master, followed the heroic 
example of Christ and laid down their lives in order to 
establish first the kingdom of God in the hearts of men. 



147 



XI 
THINGS NOT SHAKEN 



CORTLAND MYERS, D. D. 

Pastor, Tremont Temple, Boston, Mass. 



THINGS NOT SHAKEN 



That those things which cannot be shaken may 
remain. — Hebrews 12 : 27. 

I question whether there is any word in our vocabu- 
lary that would express quite as fully and emphatically 
the world's present condition as the word used in this 
Scripture reference, that verb which is freighted with 
such deep meaning — " shaken." There has never been 
a period in human history in which there has been con- 
densed so much of dynamic element to shake this world 
as in this recent half of a decade. The guns on the 
battle-field and on the sea shook it and made it unsteady 
in its pathway. They shook cathedrals from their foun- 
dation. They shook factories into ruins. They shook 
cities into ashes. They shook fields and forests and 
orchards into wreckage and ruin. They shook the very 
rivers until they ran over their boundary-lines and then 
colored them with crimson. They sent millions of our 
fellow men into early graves. They shook your world 
into pestilence and famine and disease, starvation and 
death. We never dreamed of passing through such a 
period of shaking as these recent years. 

When this process was over and we thought it was 
all over and peace had at last dawned for humanity and 
a permanent peace according to promise and according 
to dream and the only just answer to the tidal wave 
of sacrifice, after we had given our billions of money 
and our millions of young manhood, had given without 
limit, sacrificed in every direction, then the peace prom- 
ise and the quiet of our world was left in the hands of 
politicians, and greedy eyes searched all over the map of 

[1511 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



the world, and then feet of animals instead of man climbed 
over into the trough and a sordid, selfish transaction was 
immediately on, and the old game was being played, and 
the whole program was toward one end: — the next elec- 
tion. England had it first, and Lloyd George had to be 
Prime Minister again, and he went over all his land 
making all kinds of promises, and he was elected. Then 
France immediately had her game, and Clemenceau had 
to be defeated, and another politician had to come in, and 
things had to be changed, and all kinds of promises 
were made by the politician. Then they threw the treaty 
over here to America, and the American Congress used 
it like a football and tried to get into a good game and 
a good play and reach the goal. They said, " We will 
get a touch-down in the next election." 

The greatest opportunity this world ever saw to make 
peace for humanity and no more war and bloodshed has 
been lost, basely lost, politically lost, worse than lost, and 
the political machinery is making the earth now shake 
from center to circumference, and wise men are won- 
dering whether the old planet will be able to stay in its 
orbit any longer. 

Everything has been shaken. Alas, some men's faith 
has also been shaken. But I am rejoicing that in the 
midst of these world conditions and with no good out- 
look for the future, there are some things that cannot be 
shaken, and I am going to mention only those which arc 
fortified and made absolutely secure by revelation. 

First of all, the throne of God cannot be shaken. No 
matter what may take place in the world materially, no 
matter what may take place in its ultimate destination, 
no matter what may take place in any of the starry 
worlds, they may all disappear from their setting for- 
ever, and yet the throne of God at the center of this 
universe cannot be shaken. We have seen other thrones 
topple, tremble, tumble, and fall. We have seen the 



152 



THINGS NOT SHAKEN 



crowns kicked around the earth and thrown into the 
rubbish-heap. We have seen the scepters used by the 
anarchist used as a walking-stick. We have seen throne 
after throne fall in the shaking process of these years, 
and some of them were considered the strongest and 
most durable thrones in the world. But they are gone 
in the period of a few days. One, two, three, four, five, 
ten, twenty, all gone. Shaken from their foundation. 
The thrones of the earth are apparently insecure, seem- 
ingly on the increase of insecurity. No matter what 
you may name them. You may call them democratic if 
you please, and yet you mark them with instability and 
insecurity the moment you put them on top of the planet. 
It is all shaken, but when the thrones of the earth totter 
and tumble, the throne of God endureth forever. That 
is what the Scripture says. 

We have been so sadly disappointed over the apparent 
failure as a result of this great world war and this up- 
heaval. The earth was struck with a tidal-wave and a 
volcano and an earthquake all at once. We supposed 
some beneficial result was to accrue and the program 
was to be carried to a finish, and we have been tremen- 
dously disappointed. No worse failure was ever put on 
the table than the Treaty at Versailles. It has crumbled 
all to pieces today. Before it was signed it was going to 
pieces. It was a farce from beginning to end. With all 
my desire for a world peace, I could never have uttered 
another word to substantiate my fellow men's faith in 
God if that peace treaty had not gone to smash. Why? 
Because the God at the center of the universe, whose 
throne is immovable, was absolutely ignored. His name 
was not mentioned, his blessing not asked. Infidelity 
wrote that document, and then we expect the good God 
to see it through. You will have to change every page 
of human history, if God did not pass judgment on such 
a bit of infamy as that. Heathen men would not per- 



153] 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



mit it. One of the Big Three was an, atheist, and he 
would not permit it. The others were not men enough 
to stand up for it. No breath of prayer was offered for 
it, and God was ignored. 

Now we are on the edge of an abyss. Do not imagine 
this is the result of shallow thinking or of insanity either, 
because it is universally agreed upon by thinking men. 
We are on the edge of an abyss just now. I have given 
you fundamentally the reason for it. This great war 
broke on the earth because nations forgot God. Ger- 
many first of all, and the rest of them following in the 
trail. Now we are on the edge of an abyss because the 
recognition is not made that the great defect is the 
failure to recognize God and the great need of this 
human family is the spiritual need. It is not in any 
economical program ; it is not in any material progress ; 
it is not in new inventions. God knows if you make them 
it will make the next war infinitely worse than this 
last one, and I read this last week of the men, and 
Clemenceau and Lloyd George were in the list, who said 
that we were getting ready for another war. It was in- 
evitable. They are building bigger navies and creating 
bigger armies, making new inventions, and God pity the 
old world and its inhabitants with all their progress in 
inventive genius if you forget that the only salvation for 
this human race is to satisfy the spiritual need and the 
souls of men. 

You know that Marx, who is the author of all this 
modern socialism, said there were four things to be 
gotten rid of before there could be any progress in the 
human family. First of all, you had to get rid of your 
abominable idea of a God; you had to get rid of the 
superstition of religion; you had to get rid of conscience, 
and you had to get rid of the insanity of immortality. 

Now you have it. That is the fountain-head of all the 
streams of all socialism that have been flowing through 

[ 154 1 



THINGS NOT SHAKEN 



Russia. It is to get rid of God, get rid of the church and 
religion, get rid of conscience, and get rid of immor- 
tality. That is the ashes and the quicksand upon which 
the Bolsheviki and all the rest are trying to build the 
structure which they call the social organization and new 
government and progress of the world. Nine-tenths of 
the people who are striking in America and those who 
are keeping the railroads from running and other con- 
ditions in peril, are in exactly that class. Whether they 
say it or not, they are there. It is their conviction to get 
rid of God, get rid of religion, get rid of conscience, and 
get rid of immortality. 

A Russian leader wrote a letter the other day and says 
this : " When I kill a hen or kill a rat no one says any- 
thing. Why do you say anything when I kill a man, 
for he is only an animal with a little higher reasoning?" 
There is something in that to think about. That is no 
light remark. That is not something to turn away from. 
Think it through. Why is he not right? If what he 
believes of man is true, then I say his logic is perfectly 
right, and it is not for us to cry out at the killing of a 
man. If a man has no conscience and no immortal soul 
and he is only an animal, kill him. You kill a hen that 
you may feed on it. Kill a man that you may feed on 
him. Why not? 

The throne of God still stands at the center of this 
universe unquestioned in spite of the cry of the Bol- 
sheviki and his kind today throughout the world. The 
throne of God still stands, and we must reckon with it if 
we have any hope for our future. The changes may 
come, and they are constantly coming, but God still lives, 
and he still swings the scepter. If you do not believe 
that, all you need to do is to read the history of the Jews. 
When they went away and went into idolatry and fell 
down before heathen gods, they went into exile. That 
is the reason the Jews are where they are today. They 

[1551 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



have left God out. What is the matter with Germany? 
She had culture and education and music and art. She 
led the world. We went there for almost everything. 
Alas, we made the mistake, we went there for our re- 
ligion. We forgot God. Germany left God out of the 
account and then came to ruin. Do not mistake it. The 
world has no border-line on it. It is all one. God is 
the same yesterday, today, and forever; and these 
United States are not separated from the consequences 
of the Jews and the Germans, from Ephesus and Karnak 
and Thebes, for your world is simply covered with the 
ashes of destroyed cities and governments, and all for 
the same reason. With all these changes of thrones go- 
ing down and governments being destroyed, there is 
one thing that remains. The throne of God still stands, 
and I have that as my great hope and encouragement 
and comfort. 

There is another thing that remains in the midst of 
the shaking process. That is just as evident and has no 
interrogation-mark after it. The word of the Lord en- 
dareth forever. All other things may go. All other 
books may go. All other literature disappear. All his- 
tory even be forgotten, but the word of God remains. 

In my brief experience we have had a period of 
atheism led on by that mocker and blasphemer of 
America and some other secondary followers here and 
some across the water, who gathered in his fortune from 
ihe pockets of his fellow men and women from whom he 

stole all their faith and the real riches of their life, and 

i 

they were fools enough to pay him. His name is almost 
forgotten. We have no follower of his whatever in this 
country or the world. He is gone. The young people 
of this age have never heard his name. I passed through 
that period when this Book was torn apparently into 
shreds. He took it in front of his audience and tore 
page after page out of it, and even the covers he threw 



[ 156 



THINGS NOT SHAKEN 



into the fire. He has gone into oblivion and is forgotten, 
but the Book still stands. 

I passed through a period of criticism when inside of 
the church, the nominal church (and the greatest ene- 
mies are always inside the walls, never on the outside), 
when strong 1 men, noble men in my presence, men who 
have been presidents of theological seminaries, said : 
" The old Book is gone. They have to cut it to pieces." 
Schools have taken up what we call higher criticism and 
destroyed our Bible. We do not hear very much about 
higher criticism now. That is all past and gone. Their 
books are all thrown in the fire and on the rubbish-heap, 
and no one would pay a penny for them today. The 
Bible still stands. 

I passed through a period of what they called rational- 
ism and that turned itself over finally into what we have 
named all over the world New Theology; then men 
lost their authority and depended on their own experi- 
ence and other things, and this Book was gone. Ger- 
many led the way and spread it over the earth. The 
Bible was gone. Rationalism was the false god that 
scholars and other people worshiped. I passed through 
that period; but rationalism is dying or dead, and this 
Book still lives. The word of the Lord endureth for- 
ever. There grew out of this all kinds of " isms " until 
we are living in a day men call materialism. We are 
living in a day of spiritualism. We are living in a day 
of Christian Science, and living in a day of Russellism 
and all manner of devilisms. We are in the delta of the 
great Mississippi. We have passed thirty years of criti- 
cism from those who have tried to destroy this Book. 
Now we are in the delta, and all these things are destined 
to be lost in the great ocean of God's everlasting truth. 

I have seen the Ganges River run eighty miles out into 
the ocean and retain its yellow, muddy stream for eighty 
miles as it made its way through the ocean; but I have 



157 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



seen that eighty miles disappear and every last drop of 
water that came down the old Ganges lost in the heart of 
the great ocean. I have seen all these streams come 
down through these years, and, thank God, their muddi- 
ness is being lost in the great ocean of God's truth. The 
word of the Lord endureth forever. 

That is what we need. That is what the ministers 
need. We have almost lost our authority ; and when we 
have lost that, we have lost everything. We have lost 
the supernatural; and when we have lost that, we have 
lost everything. What the ministers of God need today 
is to understand that this thing is not, can not, will not 
be shaken. This is the authority and the only authority. 
It is not any pope, it is not in any rationalistic idea. It 
is not in any man-made authority. This Book comes 
from God and is the divine authority and his revelation 
to men, and I hold it as mine. 

No great piece of oratory ever came from any other 
fountain-head. Patrick Henry at Virginia had it. 
Abraham Lincoln on the battle-field of Gettysburg had 
it. Wendell Phillips had it. Daniel Webster had it. 
Oh, would to God that Daniel Webster could walk down 
the halls of legislation today! We would hear some- 
thing if he could appear there or his ghost show up some 
day. In all the period of this war, in these crisis hours 
in human history, there has not been a single speech 
made, not an address made, not a book written that will 
live tomorrow. Not one that will stand print or a 
schoolboy ever will read. We have had speeches down 
in Washington four hours and a half long but a mockery 
for humankind. If Daniel Webster with his soul con- 
viction of God on the throne of this universe and right- 
eousness to reign in the earth and a conscience back of 
it, could speak, something would be heard. We have 
not had anything like it. Absolutely nothing. The sad- 
dest Commentary I know on this day and on the political 

[158 1 



THINGS NOT SHAKEN 



world is that not a line or word will live for the school- 
boy of the future. Nothing but politics. 

Our ministers have been drinking at the same foun- 
tain. They have lost their authority, their soul convic- 
tion. I read only yesterday of a minister who preached 
on " Why Does a Dog Pant ? " He had no gospel, no 
message, no Bible. Another minister preached on 
" Who Took the Ham out of Abraham? " All kinds of 
topics of that kind instead of the great truth out of 
God's Book, burning with a holy passion and ready to 
sweat blood, backed up by the message of divine au- 
thority — the Book of God, the truth from cover to cover. 
Not that the word of God is in it, but it is the word of 
God. That always accomplishes its purpose. 

I have up in my office a huge knife-blade which came 
from the jungles of Africa, made by one of the canni- 
bals. That blade was given me by our Doctor Ostrom, 
who brought it from the Congo region. It was pre- 
sented to him by the chief of the cannibal tribe, and that 
blade is all covered with human blood now. That old 
chief had cut off many human heads with that knife. 
What has happened? He was a savage, the chief of his 
tribe, with a knife that could chop off a human head as 
easily as a chicken's head. Where is ,he today ? What 
is he doing now? I have his knife, and he has my Bible. 
He is preaching the gospel of the Son of God to the can- 
nibals in the jungles of Africa. That is what this old 
book can do. Nothing else in this world works miracles 
like that. The word of the Lord endureth forever. 

Something else remains. The throne of God, the 
Book of God, the Church of God. I have my authority 
for it too. It came from the lips of the Son of God, 
and he ought to know. I do not, but he does. He said, 
" The gates of hell shall not prevail against it." What- 
ever he may have meant by that expression, he meant 
undoubtedly the extreme of all language to express the 



[ 159 ] 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



fact that there was nothing on earth or in hell that could 
ever shake the foundations of his church. That is a 
great comfort, is it not? He built his church according 
to his own statement on the heart of his gospel, that the 
great central fact of Christianity is in his deity. He said 
that was the foundation-stone on which his church should 
be built. Peter made the statement and Christ said, 
" That is where my church stands." Not as an example ; 
not as a teacher, good as he was. He walked through 
this world as no other man walked, but not that. He 
built his church not on any philosophy. He built it on 
no books, for he never wrote one. He built his church 
on the fact that God in the person of Christ came into 
this world and died on Calvary to save men. That is the 
foundation, and he said that church will never be budged 
or moved a hair's breadth from that foundation. 

That makes this true that there is no church in this 
world that does not rest on that foundation. Christian 
Science is not a church. It is a farce. It is a fake to 
call it a church. It is an organization. It is like other 
organizations, like world organizations, but the Church 
of Jesus Christ is founded on the deity of Jesus Christ, 
so Christian Science is no church. The Unitarians are 
no church. They are a club, because the church is built 
on the foundation-stone of the deity of Christ. The 
real church of Christ— I do not mean only the material 
structure of wood and stone, I mean the real spiritual 
church, the body of Christ, the men and women who be- 
long to him everywhere in this world, that great or- 
ganization known to God and cared for by God and 
waiting for Christ's coming — that is the church which 
stands forever, and the gates of hell shall not prevail 
against it. 

This is the day of big things. We are accustomed to 
big things. We jump right into big things. We counted 
money by the billions. We kept on doing that until we 



160] 



THINGS NOT SHAKEN 



raised unbelievable sums of money for the Y. M. C. A. 
and for the Red Cross, and just as soon as we got through 
with one drive we had another. We had the big things 
so much in our mind that we had to keep on, so we had 
a big drive for the church. Men said, " If we are going 
to save the church of Christ, we will save it by having 
these big things and having big organizations and big 
money and big machinery." Men have said to me within 
a few days, " This is the age of big things, and it will 
stir men and women to do big things and give money." 
I do not think so. They have swept the country with 
speakers and organizations, and this is what they say, 
that they are g'oing to tell the preachers " how to put it 
over." Men who never knew such a thing as the Holy 
Ghost are coming to tell the preachers " how to put it 
over." The fact in the case is that nine-tenths of these 
men are ecclesiastical parasites, they are theological pig- 
mies, they are ministerial traitors, and they are trying to 
tell us, by a big piece of machinery, how to put it over. 
Not a word about humiliation ; not a word about re- 
pentance; not a word about the Holy Ghost, or looking 
to God, but " how to put it over." 

The Israelites thought they knew how to put it over, 
so they got the ark back in the camp. They never turned 
toward God at all. They never thought of repentance 
or humiliation or sorrow or tears. They said, " We will 
smash the Philistines." And the Philistines themselves, 
were scared, and they said, " Now let us come together 
as we are and be neighbors." But what happened? 
They went right into battle, plunged right into it because 
they had the ark. They had the machine there and 
thought they were safe; but thirty thousand of them 
w r ere wiped off the earth. Then Samuel said : " We 
have made an awful blunder. Let us get to Mizpeh 
quick, and get down before God and be humiliated and 
pray." , And on his knees the great man of God fell, and 



[161] 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



tears of penitence rolled down his- face. God was recog- 
nized, and the battle was won. You put the machinery 
in the camp, but you cannot take God with it. You 
think the thing is done and we will put it over, but the 
Philistines will defeat you day after tomorrow. What 
the church of God needs is" the Holy Ghost, needs the 
gospel of the Son of God, needs repentance and humilia- 
tion, needs to come back. 

These may be dark days, and they are, but we have 
seen others in history. The word of the Lord endureth 
forever. Jesus Christ is risen from the dead and still 
lives. The throne of God still stands. The gates of 
hell shall not prevail against his church. In the darkest 
hour of human history, according to this Book, he is com- 
ing back again. He may come today, but when he 
comes the world will have a king that is above every 
other king and who swings the scepter of peace and rules 
the nations of the earth ; the King of kings and Lord of 
lords. He is coming back. He is not going to fail. 

I have been always interested in M'Cheyne, and I read 
a bit of his biography the other day. He died at twenty- 
nine years of age. Wherever his feet stepped Scotland 
shook. Whenever he opened his mouth there was an 
electric force that swept in every direction. Whenever 
he entered there w r as a magnetic personality that drew 
everybody tow r ard him. He lived a wonderful life, and 
hundreds and thousands of people followed him into the 
kingdom of God. This incident about him fell into my 
hands this last week. 

A traveler anxious to see where M'Cheyne had 
preached and worked, went to the Scotch city and found 
the church. He told the old sexton he had come a long 
ways and wanted to see where M'Cheyne had preached. 
The sexton said, " Come on," and that old gray-haired 
Scotchman led the way into M'Cheyne's study. He 
said, " Sit down in that chair." The traveler hesitated 



[ 162 



THINGS NOT SHAKEN 



a moment and then sat down. On the table in front of 
him was an open Bible. He said : " Drop your head in 
the Bible and cry like a child. That is the way our min- 
ister got ready to preach." He said, " Come on with 
me." He took him up into the Scotch pulpit before the 
open Bible. " Now," he said, " stand there and drop 
your head in your hands over the Bible and begin to 
weep." He said, "That is the way our minister 
preached." 

With a deathless conviction that breaks up the foun- 
tains of the deep and wets my face with tears, I shall 
continue to remember the throne of God and stand in 
the shadow of the cross and hold the Book to my heart 
and preach the glorious gospel of the Son of God, and 
believe in its everlasting triumph. 



[163] 



XII 
MODERNISM IN BAPTIST SCHOOLS 



W. B. RILEY, D. D. 

P«*ter, Firtt Baptist Ckarch, Minneapolis, Minn. 



MODERNISM IN BAPTIST SCHOOLS 



I am to speak on a theme, not a text ; I am to deliver 
an address, not a sermon, and my theme is " The Menace 
of Modernism in Baptist Schools." Shortly after the 
appearance in " The Watchman-Examiner " of a " Call " 
for this Conference, there came to my desk a letter 
written by Dr. Frederick B. Greul, saying: 

Your name, affixed to this call, implies that you claim that 
many of our Baptists ministers are drifting from the faith held 
dear by Baptists; and that many of our educational institutions 
are breaking down, or undermining the faith of the students 
therein. Your affixed signature indicates this to the denomina- 
tion as the reason why you joined in the call for the conference 
alluded to. If such is your belief, your right to do this is in no 
way questioned. As one of the interested multitude, addressed 
by this call, I desire to ask a reply to the following questions : 
1. Are you prepared to make personally the charges to which 
you subscribe? 2. Are you able and willing to specify the 
schools alluded to, and state, to proper parties, in what particu- 
lar they are using a disastrous influence on their students? 3. 
Have you definite knowledge of the ministers alluded to in the 
call, and are you willing to designate them? 

On June the fourth I sent to Doctor Greul the follow- 
ing reply : 

" Your letter has just reached me. In answer to all 
three of your questions, one word — YES. I hope to 
have in print by the time of the Convention abundant 
proof of all of these points." 

My theme relates itself particularly to the second of 
these questions, although it is impossible to treat it with- 
out answering all three of them. 

A father in Israel, a great and wise friend, once said 

[167] 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



to me, "In discussing, insist upon definitions!" So I 
propose definition for the first step., discussion for the 
second, and in conclusion, some words of warning. 

It could hardly be necessary for me, in the very outset 
of this address, to disclaim all disposition to offensive 
personalities. Some of the schools to which I refer, I 
have never seen; the most of the men whose names I 
shall call and from whose lips and pens I shall quote, 
are delightful, cultured gentlemen; to know them inti- 
mately is to be enamored of them. I love them ! 

This discussion has to do wholly with opinions, not 
with personalities, and I propose to relate it to three 
themes : The Baptist Faith Defined, The Baptist Faith 
Denied, and The Baptist Denomination Endangered. 

The Baptist Faith Defined 

There has been a report, spread throughout the length 
and breadth of the land, to the effect that the conveners 
of this Conference were interested in but a single phase 
of truth — eschatology; and were determined to compel 
the denomination to consent to their peculiar views of 
" the Second Coming," as the great, if not solitary 
fundamental of Baptist faith. The falsity of this report 
is abundantly proved by the very language of our pro- 
gram, its personnel, and the content of our plea. The 
explanation of the motive of this report we leave to the 
people who have so industriously made it. It would be 
easy to show that " That Blessed Hope " has played a 
conspicuous part in Baptist history, and was as certainly 
the faith of our forefathers as it is conceded to have 
been the faith of prophet, apostle, and Lord. But the 
discrediting of that fundamental is not the disturbing 
factor in Baptist theological thinking. 

The Pythian priestess, in the Delphic cave, is reputed 
to have sat upon a bronze altar while she delivered her 
oracles, and that altar was supported by three legs, and 



f 168 



MODERNISM IN BAPTIST SCHOOLS 

took the name of tripod. Every Baptist who retains 
aught of fellowship with his forefathers, accepts three 
pillars for his support. 

Baptists believe the Bible to be an inspired, and conse- 
quently an inerrant book; Baptists believe Christ to be 
the very God, and hence infallible; Baptists believe 
Christianity begins with a new birth, known as regenera- 
tion ! 

It may not be an easy matter to define " A Baptist," 
and we consent without controversy, that some Baptists 
are incapable of definition ; but it still remains a con- 
ceded fact that " go where you will among those that 
wear the name, and you will find them holding a certain 
set of beliefs concerning God and Christ, the Scripture 
and the ordinances." If, therefore, one were thinking 
of uniting with them, it would be natural for him to ask 
what those beliefs are, unless he belonged to the unthink- 
ing crowd who seek human fellowship for its own sake, 
and care nothing at all for " metes and bounds " in 
brotherhood. 

The attempt to substitute for Baptist foundations " the 
Baptist flavor " is, to say the least, a nebulous endeavor. 
People who think of uniting with us will continue to ask 
" the particular points of doctrine from which we look 
out upon life and religion." They need not ask in vain. 

Not to multiply these points indefinitely, nor to make 
mention of any of lesser moment, we turn again to our 
tripod. 

Baptists believe the Bible to be an inspired Book, and 
hence inerrant! The editor may tell us that " from the 
beginning Baptists have boasted that they have no creed," 
but in the next sentence he will be compelled to concede 
the first article of our faith, namely, that " The Bible is 
the only rule of faith and practice "; and, if, instead of 
a mere reference to that article, he rehearsed it in full, 
it would read after this manner : 

I 169 I 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



We believe that the Holy Bible was written by men divinely 
inspired, and is a perfect treasure of heavenly instruction; that 
it has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth with- 
out any mixture of error, for its matter ; that it reveals the prin- 
ciples by which God will judge us; and therefore is, and shall 
remain to the end of the world, the true center of Christian 
union, and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, 
creeds, and opinions should be tried. 

And if he consulted the proof-texts printed after this 
article he would immediately discover that there is no 
difference between the Baptist creed and the Bible; that 
the first is the succinct statement of the elaborate teach- 
ings of the second ; and that instead of men entering this 
denomination having to make a choice between a human 
statement and Divine Scripture, the second is absolutely 
included in the first and demanded by it! 

If Baptists have never had any Confession of Faith, 
what does Thomas Armitage mean when he says of the 
Swiss people, " It was customary for the ancient Baptists 
to use private declarations of their principles, drawn up 
by some member of their communion " ? Why did they 
take such pains " to conceal these Confessions " lest the 
State lay hands upon them and charge them with treason 
against the State religion? If they never had any 
" Confession of Faith," what was the significance of 
" the seven articles " drawn in the year 1527? And did 
Zwingli lie when he declared that he had " two copies " 
of that Confession in his pocket; and charged every Bap- 
tist with having a concealed copy somewhere about his 
person ? If Baptists have never had any " Confession 
of Faith " what was that instrument drawn up by John 
Bunyan, and forty elders, deacons, and brethren, and 
approved by more than twenty thousand Baptists, and 
presented to King Charles II in London in 1660; and 
concerning which they declared, "We are not only re- 
solved to suffer persecution to the loss of our goods, but 
also life itself, rather than decline from the same." If 



170 



MODERNISM IN BAPTIST SCHOOLS 

Baptists have never had a " Confession of Faith," what 
was the origin of the phrases, " The New Hampshire 
Confession" and "The Philadelphia Confession"? 

We would not at all be willing to have Baptist churches 
replace the Bible with a creed, but we did suppose when 
we united with this denomination (and we imagine that 
other people proposing to unite with it, still suppose) 
that " there is a certain set of beliefs concerning God, 
Christ," the Scripture, and the Ordinances, etc., to which 
Baptists universally subscribe. 

Our problem is not, as stated by t\\e editor, " Where 
shall we find our infallible interpreters of this inspired 
volume? " The question is an altogether different one- 
have we an inspired and an infallible volume to inter- 
pret? If not, the first leg is gone from beneath the 
Baptist baseband the denomination that was steady on 
its tripod will be found tottering on two remaining legs. 
The attitude, therefore, of professors, schools, and 
preachers toward the first fundamental of our holy faith 
will determine the whole question as to whether the de- 
nomination is being menaced by Modernism. 

But, with equal emphasis, Baptists believe Jesus Christ 
to be very God, and consequently infallible. Their com- 
mon " Declaration of Faith " is in the following unmis- 
takable speech : 

We believe that there is one, and only one, living and true 
God, an infinite, intelligent Spirit, whose name is Jehovah, the 
Maker and Supreme Ruler of heaven and earth; inexpressibly 
glorious in holiness, and worthy of all possible honor, confi- 
dence, and love ; that in the unity of the Godhead there are three 
persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost ; equal in every 
divine perfection, and executing distinct but harmonious offices 
in the great work of redemption. 

From the days of the apostles until , the beginning of 
the twentieth century, scarce a single man denied the 
deity of Christ and dreamed of retaining fellowship in the 

[1711 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



Baptist denomination ; and in that same time, not a one 
attempted the camouflage of so defining Christ as to 
make him a mere mortal, son of Joseph vs. the Holy 
Ghost, and yet continue to talk of him as " divine." That 
is the new method ; that is the increasingly common 
method. I beg pardon; for the moment I forgot my 
Scripture ! So far away as Peter's time he said, " But 
there were false teachers also among the people, even as 
there shall be false teachers among you, who privily 
shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord 
that bought them " (2 Peter 2:1). 

If Christ is not divine, very God of very God, the in- 
fallible, inerrant One, then the faith of all our fathers 
was falsely fixed, the chief foundation-stone upon which 
our denomination has always rested, is once and forever 
removed : every Baptist contention has been without oc- 
casion ; and Christianity itself is in collapse. Henry Van 
Dyke, to whom believers are indebted for many admir- 
able statements of truth, never expressed a more funda- 
mental one than when he declared : " The unveiling of 
the Father in Christ was, and continued to be, and still is. 
the palladium of Christianity. All who have surrendered 
it, for whatever reason, are dispersed and scattered; all 
who defend it. in whatever method, have been held fast 
in the unity of the faith and in the knowledge of the 
Son of God." In the language of John Watson, " The 
life-blood of Christianity is Christ." It is not in Jesus 
of Nazareth, a mere man. it is in Christ! " Other foun- 
dation can no man lay " (for a true church) " than that 
which is laid, which is Jesus Christ." Mark you, not 
Jesus the man, but " Jesus Christ ! " Mark you, not 
Christ the son of Joseph, but Christ the Lord! Mark 
you, not " the earthly Christ " in " contradistinction to 
the heavenly," but Jesus the Christ ! 

Before I have finished this address I will be found 
addressing some of my brother ministers in the pathetic 



[172] 



MODERNISM IN BAPTIST SCHOOLS 

complaint of the woman in the Garden, " They have 
taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have 
laid him." Take him away, and the denomination totters 
on a single leg; and the time of its fall is not far! 

But while that remaining leg, contrary to the conten- 
tion of some Modernists, is altogether insufficient, if it 
stand alone, it is also too important to be passed without 
presentation. 

Baptists believe Christianity begins zvith the new birth, 
namely, regeneration. " That the salvation of sinners is 
wholly of grace ; through the mediatorial offices of the 
Son of God." In this they are not setting up a creed 
against the Bible, but they are calling attention to the 
proper emphasizing of the contention of Christ, " Ye 
must be born again." " Except a man be born of water 
and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." 
Only a few years since, a liberal theologian, occupying a 
most prominent pulpit, said of regeneration, " I never 
experienced any such thing and neither has any member 
of my family." And then he strangely concludes. " Such 
an experience is not essential to a place in the Christian 
church," as if the failure of one man to understand the 
divine demand, abolishes the demand itself! 

Prof. Gerald Birney Smith, a member of the faculty 
of the Divinity School of the Chicago University, asks 
the question, " Who is a Christian? " and answers it, " A 
Christian is one who shares the life and manifests the 
spirit of Jesus Christ." By this text, therefore, the 
Roman Catholic who wrote, " There's a wideness in 
God's mercy, like the wideness of the sea," was a Chris- 
tian. So was Whittier, the liberal Quaker poet, who 
wrote, " We only know we cannot drift beyond his love 
and care." " To be a Christian means to trust the living- 
God and Father of Jesus Christ." That would almost 
pass for orthodoxy ; but when the Modernist talks of the 
living God as " the Father of Jesus Christ " it is well to 

f 173 1 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



ask what he means, and if you learn he holds God is the 
father of all men, the former sentence loses its signifi^ 
cance, and when he defines Christ as a product of evolu- 
tion, whose Messiahship, essential deity, was a posthu- 
mous propaganda, then nothing is left. Not only the 
liberal, Whittier, but also the Jew and the Unitarian trust 
that same God, and may with equal occasion be called ( 
" Christian." In fact, no less an authority than a former 
and most excellent President of this Convention, Mr. 
Coleman, has given to the world his convictions of 
church-membership after this manner : 

My ideal church would be so big and broad, so true and 
tolerant, so virile and varied, so strong and secure in the hearts 
of the people, that no one would think of having more than one 
such institution to serve any given community or neighborhood, 
even though such district might embrace five or ten thousand 
souls. Of course it would be a Christian church. But it would 
be unlike any sectarian church you ever heard of. You would 
find within its fellowship Jew and Gentile, Protestant and 
Catholic, Trinitarian and Unitarian, ritualist and evangelist. 
Even the reverent agnostic would not be barred out of such a 
church if I were its doorkeeper, and I have seen some so-called 
atheists who wouldn't hurt such a spiritual fellowship. This 
would bring about a conservation of our spiritual forces which 
are now so widely scattered and so fearfully wasted. 

That President was a member of a Baptist church when 
he made that declaration. That it was distinctly in line 
with Modernism no man will dispute; but, up to the 
present, even Modernists have not set up the contention 
that this would be A BAPTIST CHURCH, or that its 
organic constitution would entitle it to fellowship in a 
Baptist Association and in the Northern Baptist Con- 
vention. 

The Baptist Faith Denied 

We come, then, to the crux of Doctor Greul's ques- 
tion. Are there Baptist theological seminaries and 
Baptist ministers who are repudiating the great doc- 

[174] 



MODERNISM *IN BAPTIST SCHOOLS 

trines and principles for which the Baptist denomina- 
tion has stood? If one were compelled to believe all that 
is found in official editorials, he would conclude that the 
only " fundamental principle in Baptist belief is the right 
of private judgment/' and that it matters little where 
that private judgment leads — the fact that one entertains 
it leaves him fundamentally a Baptist ! Our fathers did 
not think so; nor do their true sons and natural suc- 
cessors ! 

The only occasion for a Baptist school is the conserva- 
tion of Baptist precepts and principles. To be sure, that 
is not its entire function. It must provide a liberal edu- 
cation in arts, sciences, languages, and cognate subjects; 
but unless it stand for distinctive Christian and Baptist 
principles and precepts, the former functions are mean- 
ingless. The state can render them as well or better 
than the sectarian schools, and there is no need for our 
double taxation if it result not in the defense and propa- 
gation of the divine truth. 

We have investigated the text-books and teachings of 
several Baptist colleges, and find that in matters of 
Christian faith they are not fundamentally different from 
the text-books and teachers employed in State universi- 
ties. Here is the rehearsal of a cojlege-town pastor, 
concerning the text-books in one Baptist College: "I 
found Lyman Abbott's ' Evolution of Christianity ' was 
required to be read by students in this school, notes 
taken, and examinations followed." Think of the fol- 
lowing extract from this book : " An infallible book is 
an impossible conception, and today no one really believes 
that our Bible is such a book." " As a collection of litera- 
ture, the Bible is unquestionably the result of evolution-." 
W. F. Bade's book, " The, Old Testament in the Light of 
Today," had to be read by the same students, notes taken 
and submitted to the teachers. Its position on the matter 
of inspiration is this : 

1175} 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



Needless to say, the conception of revelation that underlies 
this stud} 7 , regards it as an illumination from within, not as a 
communication from without ; as an educative, not as an in- 
structional process. . . . For the harm lies not in dealing with 
the imperfect moral standards (of the Bible) but in failure to 
recognize them as imperfect. ... It was a compiler who identi- 
fied the Noah of the flood with the Noah of viticulture. In 
the original traditions they were undoubtedly two persons. . . . 
The story of Cain and Abel is only a torso. . . As an additional 
instance might be mentioned two legends, in one of which Jah- 
veh wrestles with Jacob at the ford of the Jabbok, and in the 
other, attempts to slay Moses at his lodging-place in Egypt. In 
both stories, Jahveh has undoubtedly taken the place of local 
night-demons. 

But still further, and quite interesting from the scientific 
standpoint, is this statement, " In order to find a mate 
for Adam, He (God) first engaged in a futile experi- 
ment with animals ! " 

Without putting in too much time on a single institu- 
tion, it suffices to say that the text-book on ethics was 
Durant Drake's " Problems of Conduct." When one 
has made that remark, and reminded his auditors that it 
was a Baptist school, it is enough said ! Its definition of 
morality makes it " a redirection of impulse " appearing 
in animal life first and later in man as he " emerges from 
his apelike ancestry/' In Mr. Drake's judgment, mor- 
ality is not the result of religion, but came even " without 
the concept of God," and in itself accounts for religion. 
Our Bible is only one of a number of holy books. The 
only way to get a satisfactory ethical code from it is by 
a process of " judicious selection and ingenious infer- 
ences." " Its recorded teachings of Christ are fragmen- 
tary and touch only a few fundamental matters." 

The same authority was selected in the same institu- 
tion on the " Problems of Religion," a book that con- 
tends " the early Jews were as polytheistic as their neigh- 
bors " ; that " Jahveh was originally a ' storm-god ' of 
Mt. Sinai " : that " outside of a few illiterate fishermen 



[176] 



MODERNISM IN BAPTIST SCHOOLS 

and peasant folk, Christ made no impression on his 
time." "His public career lasted not over a year and a 
half, and was spent, except for the last few davs or 
weeks, in the out-of-the-way province of Galilee " ; that 
" Judas grew skeptical at his pretensions, angry at his 
presumption, and betrayed his secret claim to Messiah- 
ship." " Paul had no knowledge of an empty tomb " ; 
Jesus " never prophesied emergence from the grave." 
" The concept of Christendom that it is the only true 
faith, we have now come to see, was a presumptuous and 
narrow conceit." 

If this school stood alone among Baptists, in the use of 
such text-books, if this school stood alone among Bap- 
tists in bringing its students to such convictions, our 
problem would be easy. The local pastor, who called 
attention to it, might find on his hands a fight with col- 
lege authorities, and be compelled to seek a new field, 
but the denomination would readily rise and read the 
college out of its calendar. The simple truth is that the 
majority of our Baptist colleges in the North are em- 
ploying text- and reference-books little or no better, and 
more than one student has reached conclusions similar 
to this sample, an actual excerpt from an approved stu- 
dent thesis, " It comes as a shock to the faith of many 
Christians when they are compelled to face the fact that 
the Bible is not inerrant." " Daniel and Jonah are proba- 
bly sacred novels or romances, intended to serve re- 
ligious purposes and to teach religious truth." " Genesis 
tells us that God created the earth in six days and six 
nights. That is poor science." It would not be a sur- 
prise to learn that that young man is now in the Baptist 
ministry, and since he entertains the " Baptist spirit " 
and practises " the privilege of every man to interpret 
the Bible for himself," he would be in perfectly good 
standing ! 

If the name of this college is desired, the speaker 

[177] 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



stands ready to provide it, but he believes it would be an 
injustice to the college named, since he knows it is not a 
sinner above several of its sister Baptist institutions. I 
have personally talked and corresponded with students 
from four other Baptist schools who have confessed to 
kindred skepticism in teaching. In fact, if there is a 
single Baptist college in the North, every one of whose 
professors now holds to the three great fundamentals 
aforenamed — namely, the Bible, the inspired and iner- 
rant Word of God ; Christ, the eternal, infallible Son of 
God; regeneration essential to the Christian life— that 
school can forge to instant popularity and take a place 
of unwonted power, by providing to the denomination 
indisputable proofs of its loyalty. We call for the evi- 
dences! I believe I can speak for this Conference; we 
stand ready to a man to back any such Baptist school; 
to call upon our churches to contribute to its mainte- 
nance, upon our parents to educate their children within 
its walls, upon our mission boards to accept, for home 
and foreign fields, its graduates; and we are ready to 
recommend to pulpits that need their services, all such 
students as come from that college carrying kindred con- 
victions ! 

But I am supposed to speak specifically of the theo- 
logical seminaries. Unfortunately for the Baptist de- 
nomination, the theological condition here is not better, 
but worse! 

Many of the Baptist theological seminaries of the 
North are hot-beds of skepticism. This remark is not 
born of hearsay, but based upon the literary output of 
these institutions. Take the Divinity School of the Uni- 
versity of Chicago. If there is one article of the Baptist 
Confession of Faith that is, not opposed and practically 
destroyed by the volume, " A Guide to the Study of the 
Christian Religion," then the speaker is incapable of un- 
derstanding the English language! And yet in that 

[1781 



MODERNISM IN BAPTIST SCHOOLS 

volume, the following prominent Baptist preachers and 
professors unite : President Faunce, of Brown University ; 
Doctor Mathews, of the University of Chicago Divinity 
School; Dr. Powis Smith, Professor of Old Testament 
Language and Literature; Prof. E. D. Burton, head of 
the Department of New Testament Literature and In- 
terpretation ; Dr. Shirley Jackson Case, of New Testa- 
ment Interpretation; Dr. George Cross, Systematic The- 
ology, of Rochester; Dr, Gerald Birney Smith, Professor 
of Christian Theology; Prof. Theodore G. Soares, of 
Homiletics and Religious Education; the late Professors 
Charles Henderson and George Burman Foster. 

But an assertion is not sufficient; I must quote from 
the pages themselves to prove my indictment. Accord- 
ing to that volume, Jehovah, the God of the Old Testa- 
ment, is an evolution of Hebrew thought — a tribal god, 
who through conquest by the tribe itself, became a 
national god (p. 42, 43). Hebraism, by a peculiarly con- 
structive principle, was monotheistic, freer from my- 
thology than most polytheistic religions, and so universal- 
ized the conceptions of monarchy, bringing " Yahweh " 
into governing relations with his subjects; so that their 
god idea was organized about an essentially political 
experience (p. 48). According to this book, man is not 
the direct creation of God in any Garden of Eden, but 
an evolution from animal life and has been dwelling 
upon the face of the earth for hundreds of thousands of 
years (p. 27). Christ's Messiahship is traced to mytho- 
logical roots (p. 55). Religion is not a revelation, but 
an evolution, and we have no more knowledge as to how 
it came into being than we have as to how man came to 
his present form (p. 33, 34). 

A gradual evolution, not a direct inspiration, was the 
explanation of the Bible. The Hebrew faith is a de- 
velopment " from a primitive type of thought and con- 
duct into a relatively advanced and lofty type " (p. 136). 

[179] 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



The difference in the origin of the Bible and that of any 
other literature, is called into question (p. 553), while 
the claims. of infallibility for it are utterly repudiated. 
On this last point, the language is: "There is no appeal 
except that -of orthodoxy itself to the authority of either 
councils, the pope, or an a priori belief in an infallible 
Scripture. It goes without saying that such an appeal 
will completely break with our modern world " (p. 76). 

The Old Testament books were declared to be not by 
the authors whose names they bear, but most of them of 
composite origin (p. 110). Concerning portions of. the 
Old Testament, they are declared unprofitable. The 
language is, " There are whole pages of the Old Testa- 
ment that can, in and of themselves, by no legitimate 
methods be made to minister to the soul's welfare, and 
evidently were not written for that purpose" (p. 105). 
Evert the trustworthiness of these Old Testament books, 
in spite of multiplied evidence from archeological 
sources, is still disputed (p. 130-134). 

The New Testament fares no better at the hands of 
these men. Its literature came into existence haphazard. 
Our present text was really an accidental collection (p. 
180). Mark made an effort to preserve, for the Roman 
church and other churches, Peter's recollection of the 
words and ministry of Jesus, he having played the part 
of interpreter to Peter in Peter's latter days (p. 190). 
Matthew and Luke got their information from Mark's 
Gospel (p. 191). Of the author of the Gospel of 
Matthew, nothing is definitely known (p. 192). The 
writer, whoever he was, was simply anxious to explain 
to his Christian brethren the continuity of the Christian 
movement with Judaism (p. 193). "The Gospel of 
John was originally anonymous. A later epilogue 
claimed the apostle as its voucher." Notwithstanding 
the fact that in the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus is reticent 
about himself and his office, in John's Gospel he becomes 

[1801 



MODERNISM IN BAPTIST SCHOOLS 

promptly a divine Christ and boldly asserts his preexis- 
tence and Messiahship. It is conceded that if John was 
a personal follower of Jesus, his Gospel has substantial 
claims to be regarded as the authoritative formulation 
of Jesus' thought and teaching, but the author immedi- 
ately hastens to remind us that " apostolic authorship is 
not the most vital point." The question is whether 
it contains a true picture of Jesus and his teachings (p. 
196, 197). 

We ought to be grateful perhaps that all of these Bap- 
tist men have not gone the length of Drake, a consulting 
author in some of our Baptist schools, who says of John's 
Gospel, " But it is of little value in helping us to get an 
idea of the real Jesus as he lived and taught on the 
earth." 

If there were time, we could take the great doctrines 
in turn, beginning with an Infallible Book, and conclud- 
ing with Final Judgments and Futurities, and show that 
not one single article in the accepted Baptist Confessions 
of Faith finds a full reception with this volume. But all 
of this only serves to illustrate the principle recently 
officially announced, that " nothing is more fundamental 
in Baptist belief than the right of private judgment." 
Infidelity concerning inspiration never reached its 
climax, until Prof. Shirley Case wrote his book, entitled 
" The Revelation of John." 

But we must remind our auditors that Chicago Divinity 
School does not stand alone, nor indeed are the authors 
of these volumes even lonesome in the theological semi- 
nary realm. They are speaking the new Baptist semi- 
nary shibboleth. Rochester retains a somewhat effective 
plea for Baptist patronage in the face of an orthodox 
presidency. It cannot be forgotten that Doctor Cross' 
article on " The attitude of the modern scientist toward 
Jesus " provided an exact occasion of Ex-president 
Strong's remark, " Ask him if he believes in the pre- 

r 181 1 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



existence, deity, virgin birth, miracles, atoning death, 
physical resurrection, omnipresence, and omnipotence of 
Christ, and he denies your right to require of him any 
statement of his own belief." 

That this, for some years, has been a sort of Rochester 
City atmosphere is proved by the circumstance that L. 
E. Finney some time ago received from his old friend 
and former college chum, Dr. J. E. Woodland, Baptist 
professor in the University of Rochester, a letter in 
which he said: 

As for the church, I believe it is dying at the top and will 
have to sprout anew on sounder foundation. The day of Cal- 
vinistic ideas, to which so many preachers seem to hold, whether 
they admit it or not, has long since gone by; and as these beliefs 
were laid aside, so I think the myths and fables of the Bible will 
be laid aside and the new church be founded on truth. 

But not to abide too long in one place, let us shift to 
Crozer Theological Seminary and begin with President 
Evans. I quote from the Crozer Theological Seminary 
Bulletin of April 1919 : 

It is too late in history for any Protestant denomination in 
1919 to formulate a creed concerning the infallibility of Scrip- 
ture in order to safeguard other inherited beliefs (p. 72). 

Our Baptist opportunity rests upon the fact that the idea of 
the infallibility of the sacred Scriptures is not a distinctive 
Christian doctrine. 

Some years ago Doctor Evans prepared a paper on 
" The Deification of Jesus— A Test of Character," and 
read the same before the Presbyterian ministers of Phil- 
adelphia. I tried to get a copy of this address, having 
heard much of the same, but Doctor Evans' answer to a 
friend who wrote him regarding it, was, " It is in manu- 
script form only, and it is not for publication or distribu- 
tion." Of that paper " The Presbyterian " of Philadel- 
phia, said: "A man may take his choice between the 
dreamings of Doctor Evans and the plain teachings of 

1182 1 



MODERNISM IN BAPTIST SCHOOLS 

Christ ; but he cannot accept both ; there is no fellowship 
between them." Professor Meeser, of the same school, 
writing in Crozer Bulletin, October, 1917, said of the 
Scriptures, " Authority is scarcely the term to describe 
this value." Again, " Authority, as an external, is an 
unwarranted intrusion." Again, " Man is true to the 
end of his being only in rational self-guidance." 

Three weeks ago we did think that ONE doctrine 
remained to the Baptist denomination. We had a right 
so to conceive. It was authoritatively declared, for The 
Baptist now speaks for the denomination, and in the 
leading editorial we were told that " Baptists are at one 
in holding to salvation by grace " ; but, alas for the Bap- 
tist principle, " the right of private judgment " ! A week 
later there came into my hands a volume from the pen 
of Prof. A. S. Hobart of Crozer, entitled " Transplanted 
Truths from Romans" (p. 29). I read it, and when I 
came upon this statement, 

I cannot see anything understandable or acceptable in the 
theory that my guilt and my penalty were placed upon Christ, 
or that Christ's holiness is imputed to me in any way that in- 
volves a substitution of his holiness for mine, or of his suffer- 
ing for what was due to me? That view of the theory of the 
atonement finds no foothold in my consciousness or my reason, 

and as I further perused the same volume, I concluded 
that these were truths bereft of roots and stripped of 
branches in the transplanting process. That all of 
Crozer needs a denominational disinfecting, became the 
more evident when, a few days later, I received through 
the mails a series of "Little Sermons Out of Church" 
from the pen of Prof. H. C. Vedder, in which I found 
the following exhibit of Baptist independence: 

There is one crowning absurdity of theology that even human 
law never suggested, namely, that the penalty of an evil deed 
can be vicariously borne by another, while he goes scot free. 
The idea is a violation of the universal instincts of justice — 

[183] 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



and that in the face of the plain teaching of the Bible, 
" for He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no 
sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in 
him" (2 Cor. 5 : 21) ; "Who his own self bare our 
sins in his own body on the tree that we, being dead to 
sin, should live unto righteousness ; by whose stripes we 
are healed " (1 Peter 2 : 24) ; while Paul to the Romans 
writes, " For as by one man's disobedience many were 
made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be 
made righteous " (Rom. 5 : 19). Doctor Vedder, in 
Chester Times of April 10, said : 

The same difficulty attends any theory of the atonement that 
supposes Christ to have borne our sins and died in our stead. . = 
The fault of all such theories of the atonement is that they are 
pitched in too low ethical key. . . Especially repugnant, to our 
best ethics, is the idea of sacrificial expiation made by the inno- 
cent for the guilt}'. . . The moment we make an effort of im- 
agination to realize what it means, our gorge rises. 

Reader, did you ever visit a slaughter-house? Have you ever 
smelled burning meat? What is your candid opinion of a Being 
in the heavens whose eyes would be pleased with such sickening 
sights, or who found in that horrid, nauseating stench a " sweet 
savor ? " The whole thing is too revolting, too stupidly absurd, 
to be worthy of serious refutation. No God whom we could 
possibly love and worship ever devised such a method of ap- 
proach to him and of winning his good graces. Of all the slan- 
ders men have perpetrated against the Most High, this is posi- 
tively the grossest, the most impudent, the most insulting. 

But follow these gentlemen in their attempts to explain 
away plain Scripture and introduce a novel and far 
more intelligent 'operation, and you have a perfect illus- 
tration of what Doctor King of Oberlin, himself an 
expert in the business, has said : 

One of the greatest dangers of the educated man is to be 
found in his ability to defend more or less successfully any posi- 
tion. He finds it easy, therefore, as Fichte puts it, to go on 
subtilizing, until he loses all power of recognizing truth, and 



[184 



MODERNISM IN BAPTIST SCHOOLS 

readily persuades himself either that what he wants is true or 
that all convictions are about equally justified. 

There is much more from this Crozer source that one 
might quote. 

To the theological seminaries of the North unmen- 
tioned, aside from the Northern Baptist Seminary of 
Chicago, I present my apologies ! I pass you over not 
from lack of interest. If there were time, I should like 
to bring to you a letter from a late student of Berkeley 
to show that the Pacific Coast is not one inch behind the 
Atlantic in its adoption of a most dangerous modernism, 
but I must conclude with a declaration. 

The Denomination Is Endangered 

I think you will consent that that is a mild putting of 
our peril. Our distinctive doctrines are being denied; 
our distinctive mission is being disparaged; our distinc- 
tive influence is being destroyed. But in order to make 
the fundamental appeal the final one, let me state these 
facts in another order. 

Our distinctive mission is being disparaged. The very 
same men who, in Baptist meetings, talk most about 
"the distinctive mission of Baptists," head movements 
that look to the final and effective effacement of that 
mission. The men with whom they affiliate have ex- 
pressed themselves as* hoping to produce a new type of 
Christian churches, in which " every denominationalbody 
would recognize the ministry, ordinances, and discipline 
of the others." The time was when we supposed we had 
a special mission; namely, to emphasize the divorcement 
of- Church and State, the new birth essentialto Christian 
experience, the proper interpretation of New Testament 
ordinances, the priesthood of the individual believef, etc. ; 
but now we draw lines, not in teaching at all, bur at 
territory, and divide from any people that care to assume 

[185] 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



the name of Christ, not on basis of doctrine, but to share 
the sphere of " social service," calling it " the kingdom," 
forgetting more and more that such federations put the 
soft pedal upon the great principles that have made our 
people a power. 

This necessarily destroys our distinctive influence. 
Alarmed lest we should be called exclusive or bigoted, 
we have more and more consented to the Ingersollian 
philosophy : " You have your opinion ; I have mine. Let 
it rest at that, and let us increase our good fellowship 
by uniting our forces toward desirable objects." Such 
a philosophy ignores the fact that people without pro- 
found convictions have never exercised saving influences, 
and that so-called Christian organizations, created by 
such, have commonly been as incompetent as creedless. 

All of which refers to our original declaration, the 
greatest danger to our denominational life conceivable 
is the common denial of our distinctive doctrines. 

In a coal-mine near Wilkes-Barre, Pa., one morning in 
early September, some years since, the watchman gave an 
excited alarm : " The roof is working ! Men ! Out 
without delay ! " An awful scramble resulted. But a 
few • 'minutes had passed when the great ceiling fell, with 
a terrific crash. The air was expelled with such violence 
that timbers and ventilating-doors were shivered into 
kindling; loaded cars were blown from the track like 
autumn leaves; one hundred acres of solid earth had 
sunken;, a long strip of a half mile had gone down from 
three to five feet, seaming itself as it went with great 
fissures, and men who were slow in movement, and every 
poor beast employed in the deeps, met an awful fate. 
The fall came in consequence of removing the coal pillars 
that had supported the roof. Men, in their greed, had 
pecked away at them, taking piece after piece, and when 
remonstrated with, would answer : " Oh, that earth is 
too solid ; it will never cave in ! " And finally when 



186] 



MODERNISM IN BAPTIST SCHOOLS 

some of the supports were wholly removed, and others 
were sadly weakened, the crash came. 

It is a parable ! " When the foundations are removed, 
what shall the righteous do ? " It is no longer an in- 
stance of God's giant, groping in darkness for the pillars 
of a heathen temple, that he may hurl them to the ground 
and conquer against his adversaries. The whole figure 
has shifted. The Samson of Modernism, blinded by 
theological fumes from Germany, feels for the pillars 
of the Christian temple and would fain tear the last one 
away and leave Christianity itself in utter collapse. If 
in any measure that ever be accomplished, let it not be 
said to the shame of Baptists that they were engaged as 
" pipers of peace " at the very time when their denomi- 
nation perished! 



[187 



XIII 
BAPTISTS AND WORLD-WIDE MISSIONS 



J. WHITCOMB BROUGHER, D. D. 

Pastor. Temple Baptist Church, Loe ADgelet. Calif. 



BAPTISTS AND WORLD-WIDE MISSIONS 



The mission of the Baptists is defined by Scripture. I 
wish to base what I have to say on two texts : Phil. 
1 : 21, " For to me to live is Christ," and Acts 16 : 9, 10, 
" A vision appeared to Paul in the night : There was a 
man of Macedonia standing, beseeching him, and saying, 
Come over into Macedonia, and help us. And when he 
had seen the vision, straightway we sought to go forth 
into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to 
preach the gospel unto them." The motto of Paul's life 
was enunciated in the words to the Philippians, " For 
to me to live is Christ." It was around this principle 
that every thought, word, and action in the apostle's life 
revolved. Wherever he was, he was living the Christ 
life. This motto should be the center of every Chris- 
tian's life. It should be the principle around which the 
life of the denomination revolves. It is Paul's definition 
of life. Some people have said, " Join me and money, 
and that will be life." Others have said, " Join me and 
pleasure, and that will be life." Still others have said, 
" Join me and fame, and that will be life." But Paul 
defines life as that mysterious union between the believer 
and Christ himself. Being united with Christ wherever 
he went, whether to Jerusalem, Macedonia, or Rome, he 
testified by word of mouth and manner of life for Jesus 
Christ. The world-wide mission of Baptists is for the 
members to live Christ and preach Christ to every crea- 
ture in the whole world. In our Baptist churches there 
are enough members, if consecrated to the service, to 
evangelize the world in a few years. There is money 
enough in our membership, if it were dedicated to the 

[191] 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



service of Christ, to finance this world program. There 
is divine power enough promised through Christ to en- 
able us to perform this great task. Jesus said: "All 
authority (which implies power) is given unto me in 
heaven "and on earth. Go, make disciples of the nations ; 
and lo, I am with you always, even unto the consumma- 
tion of the age." i Equipped thus, with members, money, 
and power, the church of Christ cannot be true to her 
Lord and undertake anything less than the evangelization 
of the whole world. The door is open for the progress 
of the gospel in every land in the world. The simple 
question is, How are we going to gear up the spiritual 
forces of our denomination to the great task of preach- 
ing Christ to the world? 

At the present time, our denomination is bearing wit- 
ness along four great lines : Our missionaries are preach- 
ing Christ; they are conducting educational work with a 
view to building Christ character ; they have their minis- 
try of healing that they may introduce Christ to the sick 
and distressed; they have their industrial work through 
which they are seeking to establish the principles of 
Jesus Christ in the industrial life of the people of all 
nations. Out of all these combined efforts, the one great 
objective of evangelizing the world and hastening the 
coming of the kingdom of God is to be found. In order 
that we may inspire our people to an enthusiastic under- 
taking of our great mission, I wish to suggest three V's : 
The Vision ; The Voice ; The Volition. 

I. The Vision 

1. The Vision of Christ. Paul says (2 Cor. 3 : 18), 
" We all with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the 
glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image 
from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit." 
We do not have the privilege of beholding the Lord with 
our physical eyes. We may get a fresh revelation of 

[192 1 



BAPTISTS AND WORLD-WIDE MISSIONS 

him, however, through the medium of the New Testa- 
ment record of his words and actual achievements of his 
life and the consummate beauty of his character. These 
are the mirrors in which we may behold our Lord. Jesus 
said, " Ye search the Scriptures because ye think that in 
them ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify 
of me." Words are a reflection of a man's character. 
I meet a stranger; we speak to each other; the special 
accent of his voice and the words he uses tell me that 
he is an Englishman. I meet another, and his language 
reveals that he is a Scotchman. I meet another; the in- 
tonation, the special mellow accent of his voice tell me 
that he is from the South. Words reflect a man's life. 
They reveal his education, or lack of it. They reveal 
his purposes and his ideals. No man can read the New 
Testament and meditate upon the words of him who 
spake as never man spake, and not feel the transforming 
power of those words and get a new vision of Christ's 
purposes for a lost world. I received a letter the other 
day from my wife. Two of my children were graduat- 
ing, a daughter from college and a son from high school. 
Another son is preaching the gospel of Christ as a young 
theological student. Still another daughter is honorably 
married and living in a happy home. The words of that 
letter were expressions of gratitude and love. My wife 
was thanking God for the four children that were mak- 
ing their parents' lives so happy by their love for their 
parents and obedience to their will. That letter was a 
revelation of that mother's heart. Read the New Testa- 
ment through the eyes of love, and there will be revealed 
to you the vision of Christ's heart and his purpose to 
redeem a sin-cursed world. 

We get a still further revelation of his wonderful pur- 
pose for humanity through the actual deeds he per- 
formed. Go with him to the wedding, learn there his 
thoughtful consideration for the housewife in an embar- 

[193 1 



BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALS 



rassing circumstance. Follow him to the side of the 
sick, and see his compassion as he heals them. Kneel 
with him as he washes the disciples' feet, and behold his 
wonderful forgiveness. Most of us would be willing 
to wash our enemies' feet if we could use boiling water. 
Stand beside the cross and see him die, and as he is dying 
hear him say : " Father, forgive them ; they know not 
what they do." When we behold the marvelous char- 
acter of Jesus Christ revealed in his words and his acts, 
when we meditate upon the spirit animating his life and 
prompting his words and deeds, our hearts burn within 
us, we are inspired with a new determination to do his 
will and to carry out the mission he has given to us. 

The contemplation of Jesus Christ transforms our 
own character and gives unto us the power of revealing 
him through our words and actions to men and women 
who have rebelled against God and rejected his love. A 
boy of eighteen, an only son, ran away from home. He 
left a message for his father and mother in which he 
told them that he had gone to make his own way in the 
world. He declined to accept their help any more and 
refused to go to college. A few days after he had gone, 
the father called me up on the phone and asked me to 
help him find the boy. He thought he might be in my 
Sunday-night congregation. I announced on Sunday 
night that I would be glad to see the young man who 
had left home that week to give him a message from his 
parents. No response came, but a few days later I had 
a letter from him in San Francisco. He asked me to 
cheer up his father and mother, tell them that he was 
all right, but that he was not coming home. I told the 
parents, and they asked me to go to San Francisco and 
have a talk with him. After a few days, I made arrange- 
ments to go. Before I went, though, I looked into the 
face of my own son just eighteen and graduating from 
high school. I wanted to put myself in that father's 



[ 194 



BAPTISTS AND WORLD-WIDE MISSIONS 

place. I thought on the feelings I would have if my son 
had run away. T took the train at night and reached 
San Francisco the next morning. By noon I had gotten 
in touch with the young man I was seeking. I prayed 
earnestly that I might reveal to that boy by word and act 
the love of his own mother and father. After an hour's 
earnest conversation I asked him to kneel and let us pray 
together, and we did. In the middle of the prayer he 
began to sob, and when we stood to our feet, he put 
out his hand and grasped mine and said, " I will go 
home." I wired the father and mother to meet us the 
next morning at the station. When the train rolled in I 
saw this son fall into the arms of his mother and be wel- 
comed home by his parents. He was fully forgiven, and 
went to college, and is today living an upright, honorable, 
successful, happy life. When Christians become so thor- 
oughly imbued with the Spirit of Jesus Christ that their 
conduct reveals his love and forgiveness, we shall have 
power to win a runaway world back to Jesus Christ. 

2. In the second place, we need a vision of the world. 
We need to get a conception of the world such as Christ 
had. Our task is a world-wide one, starting at Jeru- 
salem, to Judea and Samaria, to the uttermost parts of 
the world. Not merely my home, my church, my city, 
my State, or my country, but the whole world. I must 
be as interested in the boy and girl, the man and the 
woman of China, Japan. India, Africa, and the Islands 
of the Sea as I am in the boy or man in my own city. 
Yes, I must be as interested in the boys and girls, men 
and women of all the world as I am in the boy or the 
girl of my own home. I have in connection with my 
church a Newsboys' Club. Once in a while those boys 
get into trouble. Six of them were arrested recently for 
manipulating a slot-machine and running the gum all 
out. In response to the call for help, I went to the 
police station and conferred with them and their parents. 

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As those little fellows gathered around me and looked 
into my face, I felt the same love for them that I would 
have felt for my own boys. In response to my kind and 
earnest solicitation, those little fellows promised never 
to steal again. What I would do for my own boy, I 
must be willing to do for the other man's boy. What I 
would do for my own daughter, I must be willing to do 
for the other man's daughter. Hardly a week goes by 
that I am not in jail — for the sake of somebody's boy 
and somebody's girl. 

I have visited many of the wonder spots of the world. 
I have seen the great gorge of the Grand Canyon, the 
wonderful mountains of the Pacific Coast, including 
Alaska. I have traveled through Yellowstone Park, 
God's wonderland of the world. I have been to Yosem- 
ite Valley and seen its great cliffs. I have visited the 
great trees in the Mariposa forests; but, my friends, I 
have never seen anything that can interest me for one 
moment as can a boy or a girl, a man or a woman. No 
doubt Jesus Christ loved the beauties of nature, but be- 
yond all other love, beyond all other interest, beyond all 
other consideration, he was concerned about the welfare 
of humanity. I want to see mankind through the eyes 
of Jesus Christ. I want to love them with the same love 
that he had; I want to have the same interest in my 
fellow man that he had; I want to touch humanity in 
every part of the world with the same sympathy and lov- 
ing service that he gave to the world. It is only as the 
church of Christ gets the same vision of the world that 
Jesus had that it will perform the same mission that 
Christ had to the world. 

\ II. The Voice 
V 

There are two voices to which I wish to call special 

attention : 

1. The voice of humanity's need. Some one has said 

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BAPTISTS AND WORLD-WIDE MISSIONS 

that all babies cry in the same language ; it does not make 
any difference whether it is a Chinese, Japanese, Indian, 
or an American baby, they all have the same cry. There 
is likewise a universal cry of humanity. The world 
longs for forgiveness from sin. The world longs for 
perfection. It longs for the power to master temptation. 
There has never been given to humanity the power to 
redeem itself nor to live a perfect life. The only name 
under heaven given among men whereby men may be 
saved is the name of Jesus Christ. God through Christ 
does forgive sin ; if he did not, there would be no deliver- 
ance from it. No man can live a perfect life ; if he could 
begin now to live a perfect life, he could not live more 
than a perfect life and thereby make amends for past 
sins. The only possible way whereby the past can be 
satisfied is through the forgiveness of God. Jesus Christ 
met the demands of the law and died on Calvary that 
God might be just and still forgive men. 

But the world needs more than forgiveness, it needs 
regeneration. To be forgiven, and then have no power 
to conquer the sin that has once mastered you would be 
useless. But Jesus Christ enters the heart of the be- 
liever and by his Spirit gives to him a new nature. The 
believer becomes a partaker of the divine nature. This 
regeneration is not effected by reform or education. A 
little tow-headed boy had his head shaved. When he 
came home, his old baldheaded grandfather said, 
" Charlie, you are as baldheaded as I am." The little 
fellow looked up at his grandfather and said, " Yes, but 
I have got the roots left." Reform is cutting off evil 
habits on the outside, but the roots are left. Regenera- 
tion is rooting up the sin. Regeneration is radical. It 
drives out selfishness with unselfishness. It implants the 
Christ spirit and makes possible the development of a 
Christ man. 

Education is not the fundamental need of the world. 

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Regeneration is fundamental. The owner of a wild 
animal circus told me his experience with a trained 
panther. The young lady had trained the panther from 
the time it was a little kitten. She led it around on the 
street at the end of a chain. She was warned not to do 
it. She declared that the young* panther had been so 
trained from the time it was a little kitten and had been 
educated in domestic lines, that it had lost its brutish 
nature and could be trusted. One day coming down the 
sawdust trail in the circus, a big ostrich put its head 
out through the railing of its pen to look at the panther ; 
quick as a flash, the panther grabbed it and bit off the 
head of the ostrich. The young lady knew then that 
her panther was not a kitten. The brute nature in man 
is not to be changed by education. Jesus knew that the 
fundamental need of human nature is regeneration. 
He said to Nicodemus, a man of high moral character 
and thorough education, " Ye must be born again." Bap- 
tists believe in a regenerated church-membership. We 
believe that the world's greatest need is a regenerated 
spirit. The cry of humanity for forgiveness and re- 
generation must be answered with the gospel of Jesus 
Christ. The world's discord and confusion will never 
be allayed until Jesus Christ calms the souls of men as 
he calmed the Sea of Galilee. Henry Watterson, the 
great Southern editor, has declared that the world has 
only one hope, and that is Jesus Christ and him crucified. 
The souls of men will never be satisfied outside of 
Christ. Jesus Christ, and he alone, is the solution of 
every problem known to human experience. An old 
German in Portland, Oregon, in the financial panic 
of 1903 went to the bank to get his money. He was 
handed a clearing-house certificate. He refused to take 
that— he wanted real money. The president of the bank 
explained to him the process by which clearing-house 
certificates took the place of gold or silver and could be 

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used for the same purpose. The banker asked him if he 
did not understand. The old German replied : " I think 
I understand, but it don't give me much satisfaction. It 
seems to me it is this way : You and your wife put the 
baby to bed, and in the middle of the night it wake up 
and cry for milk ; you get up and give it a milk-ticket." 
The world today is crying for the sincere milk of the 
world. Some of our higher critics are giving it a milk- 
ticket. Nothing can take the place of Jesus Christ and his 
gospel in meeting the fundamental needs of humanity. 
jz. In the second place, we may hear the voice of Christ 
saying, " Go, and make disciples of all the nations."; 
Back of all voices, truer than all other voices, expressing 
absolute authority is the voice of Jesus Christ. Jesus 
declared that he was the good Shepherd and that his 
sheep recognized his voice. To me there is no other 
supreme authority. There ought to be no higher au- 
thority for any Christian than the word of Jesus Christ. 
When he speaks, his word should be final. It makes 
very little difference what any preacher or theological 
professor, or any other man or woman may say or think, 
but it makes a vast difference to the Christian what Jesus 
Christ says. 

My son was greatly disturbed by one of his theological 
professors. When he wrote to me about the matter, I 
told him to listen respectfully to anything his professors 
had to say, but if their word was in direct conflict with 
the teachings of Jesus Christ, for him to take Christ in 
preference to the professors. During the war when I 
was in Europe, I asked for the privilege of going from 
Coblenz to Paris by way of Cologne and Brussels. The 
Y. M. C. A. authorities could not give me that privilege. 
I went to General Liggett, whom I knew, and through 
his kindness and the courtesy of Colonel Nutt of the 
Railroad Transportation Department, I was given passes 
to go by that route. When I started on my trip, I was 

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stopped at various times by army officers. Under ordi- 
nary circumstances they would have had the authority 
to direct my coming and going;, but with the passes in 
my pocket, signed by both Colonel Nutt and General 
Liggett, I walked past all other officers and recognized 
no other authority except that of the commanding officer 
in chief of the army. Joseph Smith, with his Mormon 
Bible, Mohammed with the Koran, Mrs. Eddy with her 
so-called Science and Health, philosophers, scientists, 
and higher critics receive no attention from me if their 
utterances are in conflict with the simple, plain teaching 
of Jesus Christ. Baptists have always stood on the 
fundamental fact that Jesus Christ is the Head of the 
Church and his word and his authority supreme au- 
thority. Xo Baptist can be loyal to Jesus Christ and not 
respond to his command to preach the gospel to every 
creature in all the world. 

III. The Volition 

In answer to the vision and the voice, Paul responded 



immediately with his life. He dedicated all his talents 
and his powers to performing the mission that God gave 
him. There is nothing else for the Christian to do if he 
is a Christian. God blessed Abraham that he should be 
a blessing. God has never bestowed a blessing upon any 
individual without expecting that that individual would 
pass the blessing on. We have been given the gospel 
and enjoy today the blessings of living in a land of light 
and liberty and gospel truth. If we perform our sacred 
duty, we will pass those blessings on to those who have 
them not. When I went to Europe a friend gave me 
five hundred dollars just to use in helping the soldiers. 
If I had spent that money on myself, I should have been 
recreant to my trust and should have been unfaithful to 
my benefactor. The greatest joy of my work overseas 
was the pleasure I had in using that money to minister 

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individually to American soldiers who needed something 
of cheer to comfort and help them. And God has given 
to us the unspeakable gift of his Son. He has revealed 
to us the good news of salvation. How can we be faith- 
ful to our trust, how can we enjoy even our Christianity, 
if we fail to use the blessings God has given us for the 
distinct purpose of redeeming a lost world? 

I knew a preacher twenty-five years ago who received 
money from the president of his seminary in order to 
complete his education. After his graduation, he located 
at a good church. He never made any effort to pay the 
money back. After a couple of years, the president of 
the institution wrote him about the matter. The 
preacher did not answer the letter. The president wrote 
him again, but no reply. Finally, I received a letter ask- 
ing me to interview the man and see why he ignored the 
matter entirely. I discovered that he thought the de- 
nomination owed him an education and felt under no 
obligation even to respond in the case. He was a con- 
temptible ingrate. We all agree that his attitude was 
unpardonable. Yet I know of thousands of Baptists 
who have received all the blessings of God's grace, and 
to his request that we carry the message of salvation to 
our fellow men everywhere they make absolutely no 
response. Paul responded and responded immediately. 
We read that " straightway " he went. He did not hesi- 
tate. A colored porter was once asked if the train stopped 
at a certain station. He replied, " No, sir, she don't 
even hesitate." In answer to the voice of the world's 
need and the supreme voice of Jesus Christ, his people 
should not even hesitate in carrying out the Great Com- 
mission. 

When Dewey at the opening of the Spanish- American 
War received from President McKinley a message which 
read, " Capture or destroy the Spanish fleet," he did not 
hesitate a moment. With the vessels under his com- 

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mand, he sailed away to Manila. He arrived early in 
the morning of May 1. Before breakfast he had per- 
formed his duty and sent back the thrilling word, " I 
have performed my duty and destroyed the Spanish 
fleet." In this hour of the world's greatest need, in this 
time w T hen humanity is seeking for some solution of the 
great problems in every sphere of life, the church of 
Christ should answer that need by preaching Christ 
everywhere. In answer to the command of Jesus there 
ought to come an immediate response : " We have obeyed 
our orders and have taken Christ to all the world." 



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